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 dbarney@redmondmag.com.
Posted by Doug Barney on April 22, 2009 at 11:53 AM