Sun escapes IBM's clutches

The latest reports say that IBM's revised, lower offer for Sun Microsystems made the Silicon Valley pioneer balk at the acquisition.

Well, three cheers for Sun having the backbone to muster on by its lonesome. As I've noted before, Sun painted IBM blue would be a bad thing. And, unlike those believing in the conventional wisdom, I think Sun can continue on its own. With the right management, it can even thrive.

Shall we tick off some of the reasons again?

Java remains a Sun technology, despite the Java Community Process. Sun leads the development with community support, but it's basically a Sun drives it. Java has huge support inside the enterprise and for Web developers.

Solaris is a rock-solid operating system with loads of support among IT professionals worldwide. If it had been subsumed by IBM, many CIOs would have had a major problem on their hands because the OS would have been put on end-of-life support. Now CIOs can feel reasonably comfortable that Sun will continue to invest in Solaris, which means they can, too.

MySQL, while flubbed so far by Sun managers, can become a significant leg in Sun's three-legged software strategy along with Java and Solaris.

But by sitting down with IBM, Sun's executive team let the world know it's for sale for the right price. In my mind. Fujitsu, which already has a significant presence in Silicon Valley, would be the only likely buyer who would give Sun the necessary independence to reignite growth. Every other suitor, IBM included, would only take the company apart piece by piece.

Back in the 1980s, one of the most popular license plate holders in the Sun Microsystems parking lot was "Live Free or Die: Unix." That should be Sun's motto in 2009.

Oracle buys Sun

• Oracle buying Sun in $7.4B deal
• Analysts: Sun's MySQL could thrive under Oracle ownership
• OpenSolaris, Linux could merge under Oracle
• Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: The five biggest changes out of Sun/Oracle
• Don Tennant: Sun deal revives Oracle's Network Computer dream
• Can Oracle make sense of Sun's hardware?
• Oracle's Ellison praises Solaris, thumbs nose at IBM
• Sharon Machlis: What happens to MySQL?
• Seth Weintraub: No wonder Sun upped its price to IBM