Hey, Larry, What About Java?
    Press reports of Oracle buying Sun imply it's a done deal,  and maybe it is. Some of these deals go fast and smooth and others collapse  faster than a Jenga stack. Some open source fans may prefer the latter as it's  unclear how the commercially oriented Oracle (and boy, is it ever) may not have  the love for Java, open source IDEs and MySQL that Sun has.
With the wealth of Sun open tools, it's pretty clear that  not all would survive being commandeered by Oracle. Many see NetBeans getting  quickly roasted. Beyond that, will Oracle put muscle behind OpenOffice just to  irritate Microsoft, or set it adrift? And what about Java itself? 
In the short term, all this uncertainty plays to Microsoft's  favor, at least in the developer market. Everyone knows that Microsoft and  Visual Studio ain't going anywhere and that new products and new versions will  steadily appear for years to come.
What should Larry do with the Sun portfolio? Free business  advice welcome and passed along at [email protected]. 
 
	
Posted by Doug Barney on April 22, 2009