Oracle to acquire SUN

Sun and Oracle today announced a definitive agreement for Oracle to acquire Sun for $9.50 per share in cash. The Sun Board of Directors has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close this summer.

Is it good or bad ? I never though to such a deal. So this is my humble reactions on very hot news.

Oracle will now become a kind of new IBM, concentrating hardware and software. Not sure that's indicating a sign toward openess...

Today, I received one mail from Sun : "Need more scalability for your MySQL application". With the key message being : we own it and we know better how to run it on our boxes ! Hm, if we extend this to the new portfolio, not sure that's so pleasant for all other hardware vendors proposing Oracle software...

What for Java? I don't think Oracle did very great contributions to the community, however I must admit that they are great at charging for anything (the main difference with Sun) . Will Java continue to be free ? Oracle is used to charge developer tools. Time to check the NetBeans licenses and ownership ?

And what about MySQL? Oracle is buying its single open source competitor. Isn't that a monopoly ? Will innovation continue on this DB Engine? It is funny to see Sun being acquired while they just finished building their application stack... oh bad is live when all you did is good but too late...

My last thinking. Sun managed Java poorly but on the other side this commercial weakness has been sustaining a relatively open ecosystem. Now with Oracle and IBM face to face, the major Java love triangle is over and the fight is almost guaranteed. I am betting on competition by so called innovation that will result in incompatibilities... Not good.

With Java and Lamp (MySQL) at stake, the winner might be... Microsoft !