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IBM On The Verge of Buying Sun for $7 billion

nytimes.com

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Re: IBM On The Verge of Buying Sun for $7 billion

#21

Post by Keyframe »

mridulkhan wrote: post #12
Keyframe wrote: post #2

I don't know whether to be excited about this or sad.

I'm excited. Both of them own some really great products and are amazing at R&D. On top of that IBM is practical and profitable.

I agree with you. Both IBM and Sun have some really amazing R&D and almost all technological stacks in both companies can be merged and benefit (unless IBM kills all of Suns product lines - which it won't). DB2 MySQL, IBM processors Sun processors, Sun brings Workstations in the IBM house once again, Storage systems also, etc..

What I'm sad about is that the third pillar of once paragon of high performance computing is falling down. First DEC, then SGI and now SUN. I miss those magical times.

Re: IBM On The Verge of Buying Sun for $7 billion

#22

Post by MaysonL »

spitfire wrote: post #5

This is a shame Sun lost it's way. I was looking forward to playing with one of Sun's coolthreads servers. That's about the only interesting thing happening in hardware these days. As far as things go this is really a negative. Sun was doing all the right moves (slowly). Interesting hardware - coolthreads, open-sourcing software left and right. IBM has... Linux on mainframes and consulting. Both Sun and SGI slowly lo…

I'm just glad that Sun passed on buying Apple, back when it could have.

Re: IBM On The Verge of Buying Sun for $7 billion

#24

Post by blogimus »

wheels wrote: post #14
spitfire wrote: post #5

This is a shame Sun lost it's way. I was looking forward to playing with one of Sun's coolthreads servers. That's about the only interesting thing happening in hardware these days. As far as things go this is really a negative. Sun was doing all the right moves (slowly). Interesting hardware - coolthreads, open-sourcing software left and right. IBM has... Linux on mainframes and consulting. Both Sun and SGI slowly lo…

Sun and SGI lost out long before that. It's not like people just stopped buying Sun workstations a couple years ago; they were already out of style a decade ago. While I was in college, in the late 90s, I saw all of the workstations that were Sun's when I came in be replaced by PCs running Linux. This was before OS X 1.0 even was available, and it was a few more years even before Mac users started warming to OS X. Su…

I had a similar experience at my school. In 1995-96 most of the existing Sun workstations in the computer labs were replaced with Gateway boxes running Windows NT.

Re: IBM On The Verge of Buying Sun for $7 billion

#25

Post by hko »

modoc wrote: post #23

It seems wrong somehow that IBM would spend $7 billion on an acquisition, immediately after laying off thousands of employees.

It's not really spending. What's presumably happening is that the companies are merging, and the Sun part of the merger is going to worth $7 billion.

Re: IBM On The Verge of Buying Sun for $7 billion

#26

Post by access_denied »

Keyframe wrote: post #21
mridulkhan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm excited. Both of them own some really great products and are amazing at R&D. On top of that IBM is practical and profitable.

I agree with you. Both IBM and Sun have some really amazing R&D and almost all technological stacks in both companies can be merged and benefit (unless IBM kills all of Suns product lines - which it won't). DB2 MySQL, IBM processors Sun processors, Sun brings Workstations in the IBM house once again, Storage systems also, etc.. What I'm sad about is that the third pillar of once paragon of high performance computing…

Also, Data General.
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