Oracle buys Sun: what happens next?

The recent buy-out of Sun by Oracle for $7.4 billion has had tongues wagging in the tech community. The takeover holds many implications for users, and many are speculating about what Oracle will dew with its newest acquisition.

The buy-out allows Oracle to finally complete with all of the other top providers such as HP, IBM and Microsoft. It also means that Sun’s Java language and the Solaris operating system, on which much of Oracle’s work is based, is now under direct Oracle control, providing a direct advantage.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is naturally very optimistic about the deal and makes no attempt to be coy: "Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disc - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves,"

This highlights one of the concerns of the IT community; monopoly. Consolidation has been an ongoing process in the tech market for years, and, as Richard Holway of TechMarketView says, will only accelerate from here.

The evidence for this is strong. Before Oracle’s Sun acquisition, it bought Cognos for $5 billion whilst HP bought EDS for $13.9 billion last year, and Symantec bought Veritas for $13.5 billion in 2004. In this changing landscape, consumers must more than ever before ensure that they get the best deal from the competing providers on the market.

With this need for more consumer vigilance, the fate of MySLQ becomes all the more relevant. Some users are concerned that Oracle will discard the lower-cost database system and focus on other aspects of Sun’s services.

At Inatech, opinions are very clear on the direction Oracle will take with Sun. Inatech’s Simon Ellis said: "This is Oracle buying into the developer community. They will keep Solaris going but it certainly will not be a key focus for Oracle.”

With regards to competition, Ellis highlighted a few possible pitfalls: "Oracle may struggle to differentiate itself from IBM if it sells hardware. This provides Oracle with the opportunity to offer plug-and-play systems, their IT environment will be packaged into a single technology and could in fact send the IT industry into turmoil.”

There is, however, plenty of positivity to the new deal as well. Ellis said that Oracle’s innovative approach may just help to boost the services previous Sun users receive:

”Many may lose their jobs due to the acquisition, as Sun has not been popular for nearly a decade, but Oracle may be able to inject the innovation into the product that it needs.”