While I think that it makes good sense for Oracle to sell off the hardware business that they acquired from Sun, I find it hard to imagine H-P as a potential buyer. I'd be much more likely to believe the story if the buyer were Fujitsu, who has been involved with Sun and SPARC since the 1980's.
Here's why I think that H-P is unlikely to do this:
They are trying to focus more on their services business, having recently spent $14 Billion acquiring EDS
The SPARC line and the Solaris operating system would go head-to-head with HP's high-end servers (Itanium-based) and HP-UX operating system. While it would take a strong competitor off the table, it would also create uncertainty with the large SPARC installed base, especially in the financial community.
H-P's acquisition of COMPAQ wasn't exactly a roaring success. The only good thing that came of it was that it led to the downfall of Her Worship, La Fiorina, who viewed the acquistion as her crowning achievement, even though it led to firing 30000 people. Today the COMPAQ brand is fading away and mostly is used for inexpensive PCs.
Mark Hurd is extremely cost-conscious and very focused on quarter-to-quarter results for Wall Street. A big acquisition like this would be very disruptive and require some significant writeoffs and future earnings impairments.
I would not be at all surprised to learn of talks between Oracle and HP, but I would really be shocked if this deal happened.
* They are trying to focus more on their services business, having recently spent $14 Billion acquiring EDS
See the dog food argument, above
* The SPARC line and the Solaris operating system would go head-to-head with HP's high-end servers (Itanium-based) and HP-UX operating system. While it would take a strong competitor off the table, it would also create uncertainty with the large SPARC installed base, especially in the financial community.
There is no longer a need for 4 distinct architectures in non-specialized high-end computing. HP could be in a comfortable position to weigh the options for cost/profit, per platform, and for a relatively minimal investment, weigh what had been a primary opponent against their own assets. In light of their services business, the systems with the most attractive service projections would be the cards to keep.
H-P's acquisition of COMPAQ...
Compaq isn't a solid comparison, and neither is the reign of Fiorin
H-P's acquisition of COMPAQ wasn't exactly a roaring success. The only good thing that came of it was that it led to the downfall of Her Worship, La Fiorina, who viewed the acquistion as her crowning achievement, even though it led to firing 30000 people. Today the COMPAQ brand is fading away and mostly is used for inexpensive PCs.
The Compaq acquisition was a great success. Pretty much every HP PC product today has more Compaq heritage than HP heritage.
Compaq had better desktops, better laptops, and better
Sun's competition is pushing real hard
to get customers to defer or cancel Sun sales in favor of their products. One way is FUD, suggesting that, for example, Oracle will cancel the Sun hardware lines.
I see this as an another FUD effort, suggesting that H-P, who only buys companies up to cancel their hardware, would buy Sun from Oracle.
Another tactic is to start rumors that the U.S. DoJ and the EU will have to investigate.
The longer they can get people to defer Sun purchases, the better chance they ha
since when is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about risky undertakings a bad thing? A company that is buying big unix iron isn't going to risk buying from a vendor that isn't going to be there in a year. There is no way of knowing whether the Sun hardware line will exist in a year.
COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from
a corporation whose president codes in octal.
-- J.N. Gray
HP buying the SPARC hardware biz -- seems unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's why I think that H-P is unlikely to do this:
I would not be at all surprised to learn of talks between Oracle and HP, but I would really be shocked if this deal happened.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
desktops???? hp's x86 server line is very successful, and those DL and ML lines are Compaqs
Re: (Score:1)
I could see it going to Fujitsu or TI, both of which could leveredge it far better than HP could, with less cross-platform competition.
Counters (Score:2)
* They are trying to focus more on their services business, having recently spent $14 Billion acquiring EDS
See the dog food argument, above
* The SPARC line and the Solaris operating system would go head-to-head with HP's high-end servers (Itanium-based) and HP-UX operating system. While it would take a strong competitor off the table, it would also create uncertainty with the large SPARC installed base, especially in the financial community.
There is no longer a need for 4 distinct architectures in non-specialized high-end computing. HP could be in a comfortable position to weigh the options for cost/profit, per platform, and for a relatively minimal investment, weigh what had been a primary opponent against their own assets. In light of their services business, the systems with the most attractive service projections would be the cards to keep.
H-P's acquisition of COMPAQ...
Compaq isn't a solid comparison, and neither is the reign of Fiorin
Re: (Score:2)
The Compaq acquisition was a great success. Pretty much every HP PC product today has more Compaq heritage than HP heritage.
Compaq had better desktops, better laptops, and better
I'd FUD this too, if I was an (evil) competitor (Score:2)
Sun's competition is pushing real hard to get customers to defer or cancel Sun sales in favor of their products. One way is FUD, suggesting that, for example, Oracle will cancel the Sun hardware lines. I see this as an another FUD effort, suggesting that H-P, who only buys companies up to cancel their hardware, would buy Sun from Oracle.
Another tactic is to start rumors that the U.S. DoJ and the EU will have to investigate.
The longer they can get people to defer Sun purchases, the better chance they ha
Re: (Score:2)
since when is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about risky undertakings a bad thing? A company that is buying big unix iron isn't going to risk buying from a vendor that isn't going to be there in a year. There is no way of knowing whether the Sun hardware line will exist in a year.