Antitrust-shy IBM closed to fresh Sun talks
Good thing, gone
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
So much for playing hardball: IBM is apparently not interested in resuming talks to purchase Sun Microsystems, following their recent break down.
IBM is believed to be concerned about the level of scrutiny a potential acquisition of its smaller hardware and software rival might would draw from regulators.
CNBC has reported that IBM's contacts within the US Department of Justice and the European Union said an acquisition would spark an antitrust review lasting six to nine months.
It was earlier reported Sun was willing to consider a fresh offer from IBM, at a reduced price. That would be the second cut, after IBM reduced its initial bid from between $10 and $11 to $9.40 a share.
The first round of talks collapsed in April partly because Sun baulked at giving IBM too much control over its projects without getting guarantees the deal would be completed in the face of the inevitable regulatory scrutiny. Also, IBM was unwilling to agree to executive payouts.
IBM knows a thing or two about the cost and delays an antitrust regulation can bring to operations, and what it can do to a company's reputation and performance.
The company spent 13 years locked in a pointless investigation and long-running court battle with the DoJ, which had grown concerned in the 1960s about the company's domination of the market for general-purpose computers.
The DoJ's idea was to break IBM in to smaller companies that would compete with each other. The case was eventually thrown out in 1981, as the computing landscape changed.
The case, though, is believed to have altered IBM's behavior, with the company reluctant to price too competitively during the 1980s and 1990s in case it would again be accused of exploiting its position.
Even today, IBM is facing a regulatory probe over its mainframe business, this time at the hands of the EU's Competition Commission following a complaint by t3 Technologies. ®
COMMENTS
Baggage
Part of this may be due to all the legal baggage associated with Sun's software which dates back to AT&T Unix in the 1970s. (The licensing issues predate Sun's founding.)
While I think it would be a win for IBM to gain control of Java given their WebSphere and Tivoli products that are so heavily rooted in Java tech, perhaps they are waiting for someone else to take the bait, break up and spin off Sun's assets, and then move in to pick up the pieces they want.
IBM doesn't need to buy Sun to get a piece of the server market, they already support both HP and Sun servers. IBM will sell and support anything that makes a profit even if it's produced by a competitor.
What they choose to buy, however, is a bit more selective. Sometimes you don't have to buy the whole box of candy just to get the piece with the cherry. Somehow I rather suspect this may be the motive here, not fear of monopoly status which IBM very nearly already has if you look at their market share.
Putting on my coat because IBM seems to be putting on theirs.
Silly IBM
The critiques will do nothing to hurt IBM if IBM were to go the extra mile & suck Sun into their atmos, basically removing all remnants of Sun. Why should they? They never did anything to hurt M$ when they were being sued for their monopolistic behaviour. They got away scot-free.
Move everything to Linux & open-source & you'll be fine as long as M$ doesn't tell.
oh dear
haven't we been here before with Yahoo! and Microsoft? the under dog playing hard ball and the suitor saying "look - fuck the hell off would you, you greedy bastards, we said take it or leave it, not drag this out for eternity". I may have paraphrased.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
Cloud based data management
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
