The news about Oracle acquisition broke out on Monday evening at 5. There were lot of things running in my mind and wanted to blog about it. Meanwhile, Puspha had mailed me a blog entry and it was more or less on the same lines as my thoughts. I have reproduced the blog content below ...
Link to actual blog entry
Monday Apr 20, 2009
What is the color of Oracle?
Disclaimer: everything I write below are my personal thoughts and reflections and only those. Nothing is in any way related to official Sun standpoints or information.
So here I am, almost 9 hours after hearing the news that Oracle is to buy Sun. I was in my car when a collegue of mine called and told me. I didn't see this one coming, really, and disbelief was the very first reaction I had.
After a few minutes however I realized that this is true. "So now we're working for Oracle", my collegue said. And this remark set of a whole series of thoughts and feelings that flashed by and that I'll share here.
Is it a Good Thing or Bad Thing to work for Oracle? I don't know, honestly. When I joined Sun almost 10 years ago I choose to work for Sun, not Oracle. Since then, I've come to really really love Sun. Sun is deeply in my system. My blood is purple, so to speak. I love the things we innovated. I love the kind of people who're working at Sun: open-minded, gentle, bright, stubborn, convinced of what we do is right. I love the fact that we're a technology company (because I am a techie). I have learned so many many things at Sun, not only factual stuff but -more importantly- I was given the opportunity to develop myself as a person. I feel safe at Sun, I can be who I am, I feel valued.
Will all of this now go away? Again: I dunno. Things will change for sure but at this point I cannot judge how, when or how much. Oracle too is a technology company. One of the major reasons to buy Sun according to Larry Ellison is our beautiful Solaris Operating System. Having been an Operating System Ambassador for the past 6 years this is a somewhat comforting thought. Another thing I read from "Live-Blogging the Oracle Conference Call" is the remark made by Safra Catz, at 8:35 saying about Sun: We intend to ensure it is a profitable operating unit within Oracle. Could leave room to keep somewhat of an own identity!?
Oracle is a software company. So what will happen to the Sun hardware and its development: CMT and its planned successors, UltraSPARC64 development jointly with Fujitsu, the x64 servers designed by Andy Bechtolsheim? SunRay? Unified Storage? A great deal of uncertainty here. I've even seen rumours that HP could take over the Sun hardware with Oracle keeping the software. This still could happen although I don't think it will.
But on the software front there's uncertainty too. There's many overlapping products (IDM being one) and what will happen there? Will Oracle indeed keep Solaris as we all assume, because Larry Linux never delivered its promises?
No doubt in the next few hours or days the Internet will be flooded with opinions, maybe's, analyzes of what might happen next... I will keep a close eye and digest, combine, prune, and form my own opinion. Which, combined with what I'll hear from inside Sun will lead to more blogging.
For now, my intend is to do "business as usual" wherever I can. Because in the end, it's our Customers that make us exist and whom we should care about. No matter if this is for Sun or for Oracle. And who knows what color the blood in my vains will turn to? One sure thing is that it will take a hell of a lot of time to get rid of the Purple - if ever!!
I'll keep you posted.
BTW: The other remark that really made me realize the impact of this merger came from my wife, who said: "So, this means Sun no longer exists?". I love her for precisley this down-to-earth soundbites...
Monday Apr 20, 2009
What is the color of Oracle?
Disclaimer: everything I write below are my personal thoughts and reflections and only those. Nothing is in any way related to official Sun standpoints or information.
So here I am, almost 9 hours after hearing the news that Oracle is to buy Sun. I was in my car when a collegue of mine called and told me. I didn't see this one coming, really, and disbelief was the very first reaction I had.
After a few minutes however I realized that this is true. "So now we're working for Oracle", my collegue said. And this remark set of a whole series of thoughts and feelings that flashed by and that I'll share here.
Is it a Good Thing or Bad Thing to work for Oracle? I don't know, honestly. When I joined Sun almost 10 years ago I choose to work for Sun, not Oracle. Since then, I've come to really really love Sun. Sun is deeply in my system. My blood is purple, so to speak. I love the things we innovated. I love the kind of people who're working at Sun: open-minded, gentle, bright, stubborn, convinced of what we do is right. I love the fact that we're a technology company (because I am a techie). I have learned so many many things at Sun, not only factual stuff but -more importantly- I was given the opportunity to develop myself as a person. I feel safe at Sun, I can be who I am, I feel valued.
Will all of this now go away? Again: I dunno. Things will change for sure but at this point I cannot judge how, when or how much. Oracle too is a technology company. One of the major reasons to buy Sun according to Larry Ellison is our beautiful Solaris Operating System. Having been an Operating System Ambassador for the past 6 years this is a somewhat comforting thought. Another thing I read from "Live-Blogging the Oracle Conference Call" is the remark made by Safra Catz, at 8:35 saying about Sun: We intend to ensure it is a profitable operating unit within Oracle. Could leave room to keep somewhat of an own identity!?
Oracle is a software company. So what will happen to the Sun hardware and its development: CMT and its planned successors, UltraSPARC64 development jointly with Fujitsu, the x64 servers designed by Andy Bechtolsheim? SunRay? Unified Storage? A great deal of uncertainty here. I've even seen rumours that HP could take over the Sun hardware with Oracle keeping the software. This still could happen although I don't think it will.
But on the software front there's uncertainty too. There's many overlapping products (IDM being one) and what will happen there? Will Oracle indeed keep Solaris as we all assume, because Larry Linux never delivered its promises?
No doubt in the next few hours or days the Internet will be flooded with opinions, maybe's, analyzes of what might happen next... I will keep a close eye and digest, combine, prune, and form my own opinion. Which, combined with what I'll hear from inside Sun will lead to more blogging.
For now, my intend is to do "business as usual" wherever I can. Because in the end, it's our Customers that make us exist and whom we should care about. No matter if this is for Sun or for Oracle. And who knows what color the blood in my vains will turn to? One sure thing is that it will take a hell of a lot of time to get rid of the Purple - if ever!!
I'll keep you posted.
BTW: The other remark that really made me realize the impact of this merger came from my wife, who said: "So, this means Sun no longer exists?". I love her for precisley this down-to-earth soundbites...
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