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
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 servers than HP. Seriously, try to service (or even use) an HP Vectra or NetServer. Now go look at Compaq's products of that era.
HP dumped the Compaq brand (for the most part) and dumped HP's PC hardware.
HP is, by far, #1 in servers - thanks to Compaq's hardware. HP is #1 in desktops and #1 in laptops, again, thanks to Compaq's hardware.
Was the Compaq buyout good for HP and Compaq employees? No. Was it good for the Compaq band? No. But I don't think you can call it a failure.
HP buying the SPARC hardware biz -- seems unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's why I think that H-P is unlikely to do this:
Re:HP buying the SPARC hardware biz -- seems unlik (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 servers than HP. Seriously, try to service (or even use) an HP Vectra or NetServer. Now go look at Compaq's products of that era.
HP dumped the Compaq brand (for the most part) and dumped HP's PC hardware.
HP is, by far, #1 in servers - thanks to Compaq's hardware. HP is #1 in desktops and #1 in laptops, again, thanks to Compaq's hardware.
Was the Compaq buyout good for HP and Compaq employees? No. Was it good for the Compaq band? No. But I don't think you can call it a failure.