4 ms·

I hate to be facile, but if Sun and Solaris were so great and Oracle was this known bad place, why did they let the Oracle people in the door in the first place

I hate to be facile, but if Sun and Solaris were so great and Oracle was this known bad place, why did they let the Oracle people in the door in the first place? Maybe sell to someone else?

mrpippy 9y ago
Oracle paid $5.6 billion for Sun. If someone else wanted to pay that much they could have submitted an offer too. The board cares about maximizing shareholder value, not about the future of any ongoing technologies. Sun had been in discussions with IBM for months about an acquisition, but I believe the offer was lower and there were antitrust concerns (they did compete directly in a lot of markets) [1]. I suspect they would have been a much better steward of the open-source efforts though [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/technology/business-computing/06blue.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/technology/business-comput...
- oxryly1 9y ago
  Yeah, mine was little of a leading question certainly. Oracle seems like bad guys, but it's really the board of Sun that had priorities other than the health of Solaris and the long term employment of the engineers. Oracle was a known snake [1]. Also, sale of the entire business of Sun was probably only one of many options on the table. [1]: http://www.gballard.net/lifes_lessons/girl_rattlesnake/ http://www.gballard.net/lifes_lessons/girl_rattlesnake/
- astine 9y ago
  I was a Solaris admin at the time of the acquisition and some of the Sun folks I was in contact with were glad that it was at least not IBM that had bought them out because IBM had always been their primary 'enemy.'
InTheArena 9y ago
Not a lot of other options. Linux basically rolled the UNIX market. I remember rumours that MS was in the game, but the fit there was a lot harder to find.
soapdog 9y ago
I have read that in the mix between IBM and Oracle they thought that Oracle would lead to less layoffs...
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  Yes, this is what I remember reading too. Oracle and IBM were competing for Sun, and they sold to Oracle because they felt the employees would be more secure there. Essentially, Sun's executive team was betting that Oracle had a more stable business future than IBM did.

I hate to be facile, but if Sun and Solaris were so great and Oracle was this known bad place, why did they let the Oracle people in the door in the first place? Maybe sell to someone else?

mrpippy 9y ago

Oracle paid $5.6 billion for Sun. If someone else wanted to pay that much they could have submitted an offer too. The board cares about maximizing shareholder value, not about the future of any ongoing technologies. Sun had been in discussions with IBM for months about an acquisition, but I believe the offer was lower and there were antitrust concerns (they did compete directly in a lot of markets) [1]. I suspect they would have been a much better steward of the open-source efforts though [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/technology/business-computing/06blue.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/technology/business-comput...

oxryly1 9y ago
Yeah, mine was little of a leading question certainly. Oracle seems like bad guys, but it's really the board of Sun that had priorities other than the health of Solaris and the long term employment of the engineers. Oracle was a known snake [1]. Also, sale of the entire business of Sun was probably only one of many options on the table. [1]: http://www.gballard.net/lifes_lessons/girl_rattlesnake/ http://www.gballard.net/lifes_lessons/girl_rattlesnake/
astine 9y ago
I was a Solaris admin at the time of the acquisition and some of the Sun folks I was in contact with were glad that it was at least not IBM that had bought them out because IBM had always been their primary 'enemy.'

InTheArena 9y ago

Not a lot of other options. Linux basically rolled the UNIX market. I remember rumours that MS was in the game, but the fit there was a lot harder to find.

soapdog 9y ago

I have read that in the mix between IBM and Oracle they thought that Oracle would lead to less layoffs...

cookiecaper 9y ago
Yes, this is what I remember reading too. Oracle and IBM were competing for Sun, and they sold to Oracle because they felt the employees would be more secure there. Essentially, Sun's executive team was betting that Oracle had a more stable business future than IBM did.