November 20th, 2009

Oracle opponent cheers delay in mySQL decision

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:41 am

Categories: Database Management, GPL, General, Government, Oracle, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Oracle Corp., MySQL, Open Source, Databases, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Dana Blankenhorn

Florian Mueller, coordinating opposition to Oracle’s purchase of Sun Microsystems and mySQL, sent a note today cheering word that Oracle has asked for, and gotten, a six-day delay to answer European objections to the purchase. (Picture from Roberto Galoppini.)

Mueller, a former mySQL shareholder and strategic advisor, is working with mySQL co-founder Monty Widenius.

“Oracle is now apparently backtracking from previous claims that the European Commission has no credible theory of harm. If the EU’s objections were baseless, Oracle wouldn’t need more time now to develop its arguments. This is another sign of enormous weakness only three weeks after Oracle withdrew its antitrust application in Russia.

One more week won’t change the fact that MySQL competes fiercely with Oracle’s database products including its flagship ‘11g’ across all major market segments. One more week won’t transform a traditional company product like MySQL into a community project that could be developed by volunteers just because it’s open source. The best way Oracle can make use of this extra week is to think really hard about selling MySQL to a suitable third party.”

Mueller said the delay in Oracle’s response means a decision on the merger won’t come from the European Commission until January 27.

Widenius strongly disagrees with mySQL co-founder Marten Mickos on the Oracle-Sun deal. Mickos as written to EC Competition Commissioner Nellie Kroes asking that the deal go through.

My personal view is that Oracle could spin control of the code base into a foundation like Eclipse, with control based on investment, which would also enable money to flow in from mySQL stakeholders like Amazon.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison insists the delay in Europe’s approval is degrading the overall value of Sun, which also controls such important open source projects as Java and Open Office.

I do not disagree.

But due to its open source license Oracle is not gaining control of the mySQL code base, just becoming its commercial sponsor. So why not bring free money to support the code base and have something better to sell support on?

It’s reasonable that Ellison resents the interference of European bureaucrats in Oracle’s affairs. But personal feelings should not get in the way of business. This is business.

Business is just business.

November 10th, 2009

Open source be not proud

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:53 am

Categories: Database Management, Development, General, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, business models, java, management, mergers & acquisitions, support

Tags: Larry Ellison, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Open source is, in part, a release of ego.

When a program is proprietary, it’s yours. You own it. You can feed it or you can kill it.

Not so with open source. When software is made open source it is with the knowledge that its fate is shared among all stakeholders. The contributions that make it valuable may well come from outside, the direction of the software is no longer completely in the hands of its owner or sponsor.

Larry Ellison doesn’t understand this, and I suspect neither does Wall Street. Otherwise, why would the Street be cheering on Ellison’s suggestion that he’ll kill Sun to keep Euro-hands off mySQL?

More than the future of mySQL is now on the line. So are the futures of Java and OpenOffice, and all the other projects Sun Microsystems sponsors. Ellison thinks this fact should make the EC Competition Commissioner, Nellie Kroess, back off. He seems to think the U.S. government can make Kroess relent.

The key to why Ellison is wrong can be found in the paragraph above. It’s one word. I’ll wait…

The word is sponsors.

Open source companies don’t own the code bases that are in their charge. They seek to monetize the code, so the code can be expanded, so it will draw more committers. Acquia doesn’t own Drupal, and Automattic doesn’t own Wordpress. The code bases are, in fact, owned by the community, simply by virtue of being open source.

Ellison seems to think that if he snaps his fingers and brings down the wrath of heaven, then mySQL and Java and OpenOffice will cease to exist. This would be true if they were closed source. In that case they would be orphaned, and if no buyer were found support would disappear.

Open source does not work that way.

Sure it would be tough for these big projects to find new sponsors. But there are plenty of prospects around.

Google would have an interest in Java, as might Microsoft. IBM already has a stake in Open Office. I’m certain we can find another home for mySQL, too. Even Glassfish might well find a new home within the federal government.

Ellison’s threat to kill Sun’s open source projects if he does not get his way is an empty one. Someone would pick up what remaining pieces have value.

Open source, divorced from its sponsor, turns to software water, and would quickly flow through Ellison’s hands.

Go to an open source conference. Listen carefully to the commercial open source businesspeople you see there. They may talk about their kids and their companies, their hobbies and their passions, including a passion for the projects they control.

But they know those projects are more like their kids than their sailboats. They are responsible for the software they control. They do not own it. It’s not “my” software. It’s “our” software.

This is the attitude you must take if you’re to make a success of an open source business. This is why many in the proprietary world, like Larry Ellison, confuse it with communism, or socialism, or some other foreign -ism.

Open source be not proud. Open source code responds to whomever gives it the love of time. The parents aren’t those who gave it the DNA of capital, but those who gave it the love of hard work.

October 27th, 2009

Will OpenSolaris survive Oracle?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:50 am

Categories: Distributions, General, Linux Server OS, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, mergers & acquisitions, support

Tags: OpenSolaris, Oracle Corp., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

With Apple having followed through on its promise to dump the  ZFS file system, and Oracle still preparing to take over Sun any time now, we should consider the future of the technology, and perhaps the OpenSolaris operating system it rides on.

OpenSolaris was Sun’s attempt to secure a future for what had been its proprietary Unix. It has some advantages over Linux, on which its advocates will gladly bend your ear over a couple of beers.

But there’s a curious thing about technical advantages in the age of open source. They don’t matter as much as they once did. After all, if open source can compete with proprietary products that have decades’ head start and armies of programmers behind them, how big is an open source program’s technical details?

Open source has taught some hard lessons.

It’s pretty clear that the programming of a few little features don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy software world. Oracle has its Unbreakable Linux program in which it has invested heavily. Does it really make sense for Oracle to keep carrying OpenSolaris, or is it time for Larry Ellison to tell it, “Here’s looking at you, kid” and just walk away?

Best movie ever? You decide at Amazon.com.

October 22nd, 2009

Did Stallman fisk himself?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 10:42 am

Categories: Database Management, GPL, General, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Oracle Corp., MySQL, Richard Stallman, Databases, Open Source, Storage, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Hardware

Richard Stallman makes a good bogeyman for the proprietary software people because he’s not politically correct. He shoots from the lip, as they say, considering contradiction a hobgoblin for little minds.

But did he really fisk himself in arguing against the Oracle-Sun deal?

Ed Burnette certainly thinks so.

I am not so certain. Rather than bandy words, let’s talk about meaning.

The original deal between Sun and mySQL anticipated that mySQL would continue to progress as a direct GPL competitor to Oracle. (Has it really been over 20 years since Michael Douglas’ star turn as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street? Apparently so.)

That’s important because the enterprise-class database systems available under open source, like PostgreSQL, are only available under licenses other than the GPL. Licenses Stallman does not endorse.

What’s clear from reading articles by the deal’s advocates, including our own Matt Asay, is that this is no longer in the cards under Oracle. “The reality is that mySQL and Oracle compete in two different database markets,” he writes.

Fair enough. But let’s assume for a moment you have an idea that could turn into the next Twitter, the next Facebook. It’s a small idea, but these things grow fast if they’re good. Everyone rushes to the rail. You can get flooded with traffic.

So how do you scale? One common way is to switch from your mySQL database to a “big boy” database — Oracle. This is hugely expensive.

So you can either be constrained from the start or face the prospect of getting Oracle licenses before launch. Not an exciting prospect. Daunting enough that it could keep people from trying.

It’s called a barrier to entry and it exists in every business. Except the Web. Online you can still start from nothing, with nothing, and make something enormous in a very short time.

Stallman’s fear is those days end with the Oracle-Sun deal. He feels mySQL got suckered into getting bought with big promises, then Gordon Gecko swooped in and cut them off at the knees.

Is he wrong?

October 21st, 2009

mySQL starring as Peter Pan

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:28 am

Categories: Database Management, General, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, management, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Oracle Corp., MySQL, Open Source, Databases, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Dana Blankenhorn

The debate over mySQL comes down, in part, to a question of whether mySQL should be allowed to grow up.

Certainly this was the promise when Sun acquired mySQL, that it would grow to become a “big boy” database that could go toe-to-toe with Oracle and DB2. (Robin Williams played Peter Pan against Dustin Hoffman in 1991’s Hook, available at Amazon.com.)

Open source fans of the plan to acquire Sun (and mySQL) are either forgetting or ignoring this. I think Matt Asay tells it straight here:

The reality is that MySQL and Oracle compete in two different database markets.

That is today’s reality, and it was yesterday’s reality too. If Oracle succeeds it will be tomorrow’s reality, most certainly.

But that’s not the only possibility. As two UK-based open source advocacy groups (and Richard Stallman) wrote yesterday:

If Oracle is allowed to acquire MySQL, it will predictably limit the development of the functionality and performance of the MySQL software platform, leading to profound harm to those who use MySQL software to power applications.

This seems to be a peculiarly European view. You will note that Stallman personally endorsed this letter, not the Free Software Foundation.

(Correction: One of the groups referenced above, KEI, is based in Geneva, Switzerland, but has a UK office.)

The American view is that there are both closed source and open source alternatives to mySQL, specifically PostgreSQL and Ingres. The European view is that open source must be allowed to grow up, and communities must be allowed to compete directly with the big boys, or competition is not real.

My view remains that, if Europeans feel challenged by this transaction, open source offers them the opportunity to fork mySQL, and to invest as heavily as they need to in order to grow the software into something better. Set a course for the second star to the right and straight on till morning.

Of course, given that this is open source, the chief beneficiary of a European-funded, truly competitive mySQL code base will be Oracle. (Larry Ellison as Tinker Bell?)

September 22nd, 2009

Eurocrats killing open source softly, says Ellison

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:11 am

Categories: General, Government, Legal, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, java, politics

Tags: Oracle Corp., Larry Ellison, EC, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

American billionaires, and even America’s government, seem powerless against the big bad bullies of the EC.

So Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is trying another tack. Approve my deal or open source gets it.

Ellison carefully noted that Sun, not Oracle, is losing $100 million each month the deal is not done, and that its cash bleed is accelerating. No, he won’t unload mySQL, he added, and mommas don’t let your babies grow up to be IT’ers.

It’s a subtle game. The EC is not good at subtle. It can take the Eurocrats a long time to decide what to do, and technology does not work that way.

Ellison’s words were a reminder.

So is the EC’s refusal to rubber-stamp the Oracle-Sun deal, pending more investigation, really going to hurt open source? Do the Eurocrats understand what open source is, and what it takes to make it go? Or, by pointing out the possible damage it’s doing to open source, has Oracle found the key to making the EC move?

September 3rd, 2009

What the EU delay means for Oracle, Sun and us

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 5:16 am

Categories: General, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Oracle Corp., Merger, Sun Microsystems Inc., European Union, Mergers & Acquisitions, Investment, Finance, Dana Blankenhorn

The EU’s decision to delay the Oracle-Sun merger is an important marker in the history of technology and business.

As a practical matter its importance is limited. The merger will eventually be approved.

Once a merger agreement is announced the company to be acquired always starts losing its independence, as some managers start maneuvering for positions in the new company while others pursue exit strategies. Were Oracle to walk away now Sun would not be viable. Another merger partner would be needed.

The importance of the move lies more in the realm of policy. European regulators are stopping, at least for a time, an American transaction that American regulators have no trouble with.

Back in the era of big navies this was called “a shot across the bow.”

Oracle’s initial statement on the matter is cool, but I do not want to be the person serving Larry Ellison his coffee this morning.  A bunch of foreigners are delaying implementation of his plans, lowering the chance of success for this merger, interfering with American business.

The EU has grounds, of course. There are thousands of Oracle and Sun employees in Europe. That is why the reaction from Redwood Shores, so far, is restrained.

But if the case drags on this could easily escalate, with American businesses demanding freedom from European interference and Europeans sniffing about monopoly power.

Eventually, those charges and those feelings are going to come out. Maybe not on this deal, but at some point some American company is going to lose patience and start raising a political stink.

What happens then is anyone’s guess. Do you have one?

August 12th, 2009

Will all the good open source companies be acquired?

Posted by Paula Rooney @ 1:44 pm

Categories: Applications, Development, Distributions, FOSS, GPL, General, Linux, Red Hat, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, business models, mergers & acquisitions, middleware

Tags: VMware Inc., SpringSource, OpenBravo, Open Source, Paula Rooney

Another one bites the dust.

Add SpringSource to the expanding list of independent open source companies that have been gobbled up by proprietary software giants.

Let’s consider the growing list: IBM’s purchase of Gluecode, Novell’s purchase of SUSE, Citrix’s XenSource deal, Nokia’s Trolltech buy, Sun’s purchase of MySQL, Oracle’s purchase of Sun (and hence MySQL and OpenOffice) and now VMware’s planned $420 million acquisition of SpringSource.

Is this what the founding open source developers envisioned?

Doubt it, but fewer open source backers are opposed to such mergers as the use of open source software expands in the corporate sector and mixed hybrid software stacks are growing up in the data center.

Open source is not toppling the ranks of proprietary software giants (yet) but the quiet revolution is taking place: the model of free and open software development has reduced vendor lock-in and is delivering enormous benefits to developers and customers, observers maintain. The acquisiton trend simply reflects this notion: industry titans can’t beat it so they’re joining open source, observers also maintain.

“I expect VMware will continue to invest and grow the platform and that bodes well for open source. I hope they realize that part of the value is the large number of people building on the platform for free,” said Larry Augustin, president and CEO of SugarCRM, a large open source CRM vendor. “VMware doesn’t have a long history in open source but this is a big bold step for them and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

“They did some contributions to the kernel and and made a free version of the hypervisor available but not in open source. This is their first big open source step and shows the value of these open source companies and platforms. ”

Some open source players question Oracle’s acquisiton of Sun but think the VMware-SpringSource marriage is a healthy one.

Open source is “a great production and distribution model, the latter being more important, that creates some truly enterprise-class products that customers need.   For software developers this is especially true, since they want unfettered access to products to try them and understand how they work without needing to engage in a lot of commercial activity, which they find to be a distasteful time sink,” said Jeff Hartley, VP of Products and Marketing (correction) of Terracotta, which develops open source clustering software for Java and partners with both VMware and SpringSource.

“With our software, you can look at the code if you really want to know how it works, and you can suggest improvements or become a committer and help make future products. This point about distribution is perhaps just one reason why VMware and SpringSource make sense together, with Spring as an open source provider,” Hartley said. “As VMware builds its portfolio of products to make enterprise software easier to build and manage, it needs to connect up the stack with developers. SpringSource has certainly done a good job of that and is a big help in high regard in the developer community and have fantastic adoption.”

Once upon a time, corporate behemoths like Microsoft, Sun and VMware were considered the greedy proprietary vendors that open source startups would one day replace. Yes?

But that’s not panning out. Open source has gained credibility but the industry has yet to spawn another billion-dollar baby.  So what shifted?

A realization that the open source business model may not be working as well as the open source development model? Or another aspect of open source’s bottom up success?

OpenBravo’s CTO recently said such deals are inevitable as proprietary giants infuse needed revenue into aspiring open source companies whose download count vastly exceeds their revenue.

Some think such marriages are ideal because they generate vendors with a healthy mix of  proprietary and open source software. This prevents lockin while ensuring commercial provders enjoy a profit.

But will all successful open source companies end up in the clutches of proprietary software titans?

Have IBM, Novell, Sun, Citrix, Oracle and VMware thrown in the towel and see open source as the inevitable future? Or are they simply gobbling up the competition to protect their revenue streams for as long as possible, or making strategic buys to counter their rivals’ open source acquisitions?

I question this each time one of these deals are announced. Call me a cynic. But one has to wonder about the viability of the open source business model if all of the top open source dogs are acquired by traditional software vendors.

It’s understandable that venture capitalists who seed open source companies want to cash out but it would be nice to see another open source business succeed besides Red Hat.

I wonder how long it will take for Microsoft to make its first open source acquisition. Care to weigh in on the likely targets?

July 22nd, 2009

Open source actively lobbies for a piece of the federal pie

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 9:45 am

Categories: General, Government, Sun Microsystems, management, marketing, politics

Tags: Sun Microsystems Inc., Board, Jackson Browne, Press Statement, Corporate Governance, Open Source, Business Operations, Corporate Law, Dana Blankenhorn

A collection of open source vendors, including Sun, Ingres, and Red Hat, joined by the Linux Foundation, have organized as Open Source for America, saying open source deserves a piece of the U.S. government contracting pie.

Jackson Browne’s not involved, but nearly every major luminary in the open source movement is. In addition to vendors, the group’s board of advisors includes attorney Andy Updegrove, SFLC head Eben Moglen, Wired for Change co-founder Chris Lundberg, and publisher Tim O’Reilly.

The key player here, however, is Sun Microsystems. People affiliated with Sun and its contracting unit, SunFederal, dominate the group. This is not obvious just looking at their board of directors, but a little Google work brings it into focus.

In addition to Sun Chief Open Source Officer Simon Phipps and Federal Systems president William Vass, whose links are acknowledged, the board also has three Sun Federal board members — former DISA CTO Dawn Meyerriecks, former DoD deputy CIO Marv Langston, and Arthur Money, who also sits on the board at Forbes.

There are 17 advisors in all.

The group says its mission is to educate the government about open source, and to change federal policies in order to allow more use of open source.

A press statement puts it this way:

The Obama Administration has expressed its desire to create an unprecedented level of openness in government and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration - all principles of open source.

That’s tasty politics, but the group will still have its hands full with not only proprietary tech rivals but a host of contracting companies that have sprung up around Washington over the years, all with their own lobbyists.

It will also be interesting to see what happens after Oracle’s acquisiton of Sun becomes final. Sun shareholders approved the deal last week, but it still has to gain regulatory approval.

I don’t want to sound too cynical here. It’s important that open source be represented in Washington, and that the movement’s support for Administration goals be underlined.

I just wish the group’s board were a bit, well, broader.

June 1st, 2009

Sun shoots its final Open Solaris arrows

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:00 am

Categories: Distributions, General, Implementations, LANs and WANs, Storage, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, virtualization

Tags: Network, Operating System, Sun Microsystems Inc., Sun Solaris, Operating Systems, UNIX, Servers, Software, Hardware, Dana Blankenhorn

This may be the last CommunityOne event for Sun as an independent company, and if it is the company is going out with an open source bang.

Sun is putting everything it has into the new version of Open Solaris, dubbed 2009.06, and promising once again to unify the open source and paid versions of the operating system.

Director of product management Dan Roberts gave ZDNet a preview. The highlights are:

• Project Crossbow, which puts networking into the operating system stack and reduces the need for networking hardware.
• Project COMSTAR, allowing centralized management of storage, turning commodity servers into storage servers and moving the data used most often onto flash drives.
• Virtualization built into the operating system, so that hypervisors like Xen can be run as containers.

Roberts said Sun is also reducing the cost of its Open Solaris support contracts, and unifying those prices with those of Solaris. There will now be three tiers of support — $324 for basic, $720 for standard and $1,080 for premium.

“That gives existing Solaris customers the option of running a collection of Solaris and Open Solaris under the same contract because there’s no price difference,” Roberts said.

Putting networking, storage management and virtualization inside the operating system kernel of a scaled, enterprise-class operating system is going to be a very big deal, Roberts added.

The moves seem aimed squarely at Sun’s newest rival in the hardware space, Cisco Systems. By putting controls normally associated with Cisco networking inside the Open Solaris kernel Sun hits Cisco where it lives. Or Oracle does.

Where Sun will be living in a few months is another story.

April 27th, 2009

Rockefeller makes support for open source explicit

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:47 am

Categories: Development, General, Government, Infrastructure, Legal, Sun Microsystems

Tags: Software, Jay Rockefeller, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

A few weeks ago, while writing about the open source hospital software company Medsphere, I mentioned that one of their success stories is in West Virginia and that the state’s junior Senator, Jay Rockefeller (right), had placed into the Obama stimulus a study of open source in medicine.

Now he has made that support much more explicit with what he calls “The Health Information Technology Public Utility Act of 2009.” The bill will be designated as Senate Bill 90.

The bill would create a Public Utility Board under NCHIT David Blumenthal to push a model of open source health software, offer grants to hospitals which adopt the model, ensure interoperability with other systems, and create quality measures for the software.

While introducing his bill Rockefeller did not mention Medsphere, whose software is installed at many state hospitals. Instead he focused on the Veteran Administration’s VistA system, and the NHIN-Connect system for linking medical records installed by Harris Corp., which includes a lot of open source software from Sun.

The Commerce Committee was Sen. John McCain’s power base during the first Bush Administration, and was then led by Sen. Ted Stevens before Rockefeller took it over when Democrats regained the Senate majority in 2007. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas is now the ranking Republican member. S. 90 is currently the lead news story at the committee’s Web site.

Until now open source has mainly gained strength in government under the radar, where its advocates have often been outgunned by business interests with a contracting mindset.

The danger in Rockefeller’s legislative move is that open source could become a partisan issue, which it is not. It will be interesting to see if Republicans seeking funding for 2010 start soliciting donations from proprietary companies promising to “get government out of the software business.”

April 22nd, 2009

MySQL 5.4 makes debut but won't ship soon

Posted by Paula Rooney @ 11:46 pm

Categories: Applications, Database Management, FOSS, General, Sun Microsystems, support

Tags: MySQL, Sun Microsystems Inc., Open Source, Databases, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Paula Rooney

Is it coincidental that Oracle announced its planned purchase of Sun (and its MySQL) at the start of the open source database’s annual conference this week?

Probably not. Yet as many speculate about the proprietary database giant’s plans for its new open source asset, a new version of mySQL made its debut this week.

MySQL 5.4, which made its debut at the MySQL Conference & Expo in Santa Clara, Calif. on Tuesday, will offer significant performance and scalability enhancements, Sun said.

For instance, the open source databse’s InnoDB storage engine can now scale up to 16-way x86 servers and 64-way CMT servers. MySQL says application performance is 40 percent faster, due to subquery optimizations and new query algorithms that use main memory to speed up execution of multi-joins, the company also said.

A preview version 5.4 is available for download now on Sun’s web site for 64-bit versions of Linux and Solaris 10.

Still, availability is not imminent. Sun said a release date for 5.4 will be announced later this year. To me, this means it won’t actually hit the market until Q4 of 2009 or 2010.

Version 5.4 will be available on Red Hat and SUSE Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, FreeBSD, HP UX, IBM AIX and IBM i5/OS.

Provided the Oralce-Sun deal is approved, it will be interesting to see how Larry Ellison and co. plan to develop and support its namesake database software alongside the popular open source MySQL.

April 21st, 2009

Will Oracle-Sun deal close?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 9:33 am

Categories: Database Management, GPL, General, IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Oracle Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., IBM Corp., Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Law, Open Source, OpenOffice, Investment, Finance, Business Operations

While some analysts are already imagining big Sun job cuts or poring over its real estate, a few are asking the obvious follow-up.

Will this deal go through?

That’s not an academic question. Despite offering Oracle a $260 million “break-up fee,” Sun is trading at $9.18 per share, a huge jump from Friday but still short of the price Oracle is offering.

With an offer on the table Sun is now officially “in play” and it is not inconceivable that another bidder, such as IBM, could come in with a higher bid. Officially Big Blue is unruffled, but merger fans are already speculating on what might come next.

As noted yesterday, this deal makes Oracle a hardware player for the first time. It complicates matters for IBM, which has long made its money with open source and suddenly finds a rival controlling more face cards.

Avoiding this tectonic shift could push IBM to raise its bid. Or, knowing the real value of Sun’s assets, it could look somewhere else.

Second, what about the anti-trust implications? Analysts fingered worry beads for years that Oracle was monopolizing the database market with its acquisitions. Now it would control the open source alternative?

At minimum this deal will take several months to close. This means, for the first time, major open source projects like Java, OpenOffice.org, mySQL and Solaris are in limbo. There is uncertainty, something markets hate, which leaves anyone dealing with Sun hesitant.

So, how long do you think it will take to create Snorkel? And will it become a real threat to IBM, or more of an Urkel?

April 20th, 2009

Oracle press release speaks truth

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 1:19 pm

Categories: Database Management, Development, General, Hardware, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, java, management, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Oracle Corp., Sun Solaris, Open Source, Servers, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, Dana Blankenhorn

We in open source are so vain. We think every deal is about us. (So I like Carly Simon. Sue me.)

Snorkel is the clever name Miko Matsumura has given the proposed combination of Sun and Oracle.

Like Mark Shuttleworth and others in the open source business space he assumes this is all about us. It has to be about us. Who else can it be about?

On the surface this makes sense. Oracle now gains “control” of Java, of mySQL, and of OpenOffice, three of the biggest dogs in the open source universe.

For Brian Gentile of Jaspersoft, this sets up a “battle for the developer” among Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft.

To prevent developers from fleeing to those competitors, Oracle will need a different and more transparent, collaborative approach than it has ever mustered in the past. This audience will demand it.

My problem with this comes down to one word. Fork.

In open source, if you don’t like something, you fork it. You create your own version. You get together with friends and go for it.

Java was highly forked before Sun finally went open source with it, and such forks remain viable. IBM offers an open source alternative to OpenOffice that works well. And have you heard the good news about Ingres?

Even before this deal gets done, Oracle must know that many open source developers already have one foot out the door. Why would it pay anything to get in such a situation?

Solaris. Sometimes press releases tell the full, honest truth.

The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle’s largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris.

Sometimes, the hips don’t lie. (For those of you over 30 that’s a Shakira reference.)

Lots of developers work with Java, and will continue to work with a forked version. Same with mySQL. Solaris, maybe, not so much.

For Oracle, I continue to believe, this is a defensive play. The big dogs in server hardware are now H-P, IBM, Dell, Cisco and Oracle. Three of those companies have substantial assets in the software space.

That’s where the game is. Hardware and software combined into a solution, with one throat to choke. I may be wrong. Maybe Java and mySQL and OpenOffice offer Oracle unlimited opportunity. Maybe it’s all about us.

Or maybe Michael Dell is putting in a call to Mark Hurd….and John Chambers is wondering if he needs a dance partner.

April 20th, 2009

Why is Oracle picking up the Sun mess?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:37 am

Categories: General, Hardware, Linux Server OS, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, java, management, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Oracle Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Sun Solaris, Operating Systems, Open Source, Software, Dana Blankenhorn

Since word got out that Oracle will buy Sun for $9.50 per share cash, 10 cents per share more than the IBM deal Sun walked away from, we have been asking one question.

Why?

Oracle insists this will improve its earnings right away, although Sun had been losing money, and that there are synergies between its enterprise software and Sun’s mission-critical hardware.

This seems absurd given that Sun reported a $209 million loss last quarter. But its gross margins on hardware remain high, so maybe if you blow out the company’s operating infrastructure quickly you can make the numbers work.

The deal also seems to bust a big hole in Oracle’s cash vault. So again, why?

Some theories:

1. Oracle’s cash was doing poorly. It lost more from investing and financing last quarter than it gained in operations. Operations seem a better place to put cash.
2. This is a defensive move. To quote the press release. “The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database.” Want that in a rival’s hands?
3. Oracle has experience cutting the bureaucratic heart out of its acquisitions quickly, yet retaining their book of business. Sun’s hardware customers can’t move that fast.
4. Scott McNealy probably gave a good presentation about Sun Federal. There is big money to be made working for the government. He can still build that business under Ellison.

As to open source itself, I don’t think it was relevant to this deal.

I don’t think mySQL or Java are being given a high value in the deal’s paperwork. Although it will be fun for Oracle to meet all those companies that ditched it for the cheaper open source alternative, and some will shout “antitrust” as a result — in which case Oracle can just spin it out.

Why did Sun decline to dicker with Oracle while it fought for every penny with IBM? There is something to be said for the cultural divide between Silicon Valley and Armonk. McNealy and Ellison speak the same language, McNealy and IBM not so much.

One final thing. This deal needs to be finalized quickly. Today competitors can spin stories of Sun being rotten fruit and Oracle being money hungry. That will only die down once the combined sales forces can get into the field with a shared story, after the deal goes down.

Personally I think this is a bad fit and that Oracle will rue this day. But I don’t have any money riding on it.

April 14th, 2009

Simon Phipps amazed Google dancing around Java compatibility

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:00 am

Categories: Cloud Computing, Development, General, Google, Internet, Sun Microsystems, java

Tags: Google Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Programming Languages, Blogging, Java, Open Source, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Internet, Dana Blankenhorn

At his personal blog Webmink, Sun’s chief open source officer, Simon Phipps, complained Sunday that Google is not supporting all Java classes in its App Engine. He even linked to Google’s list of supported classes.

The reaction was not all that he had hoped. (This is Phipps at FOSS India in 2007.)

Even on his own blog, some pushed back, saying Google was not changing the specs, just specifying which classes would be hosted on its App Engine. Others said his demands for open source purity were counterproductive.

Over at Slashdot, some commenters called Sun jealous of Google’s success, but others agreed with Phipps, saying Google “sandboxxed” Java and specifically questioning the lack of support for threads.

I have to wonder whether this is indeed a product of Sun’s weakness. Picking-and-choosing from within a standard library is most prevalent when the company which created that library is too weak to object in a meaningful way. Notice this complaint does not appear on Phipps’ Sun blog.

It’s no longer a question of whether Google’s actions weaken Sun. They seem to me to weaken Java. At the end of the day the code means more than its creator.

What say y’all?

April 9th, 2009

Presidential commitment to open source still unclear

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 8:37 pm

Categories: Applications, Development, General, Government, Sun Microsystems, mass market, politics

Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista, Health Care, Veterans Administration, Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

The President’s announcement of a coordinated system of Electronic Medical Records for both soldiers and veterans could be a big win for open source.

As ZDNet Healthcare reported early this week the military and VA records will transfer under NHIN-CONNECT.

While the network was created under a contract to Harris Corp., it features the GlassFish open source application platform, the Java Composite Application Platform Suite (CAPS) SOA Platform, and the Sun Java Identity Management suite.

The place of open source in the final EMR system, however, remains unclear.

Defense offers medical care through an insurance system called TRICARE, managed by a proprietary records system called AHLTA, contracted through Northrup-Grumman. The Veterans Administration is a single-payer health care system managed by an open source records system called VISTA.

Between them the two agencies control a substantial part of the healthcare market and, as a result, a big hunk of the coming Electronic Medical Record (EMR) market. VISTA was first created in the 1970s, long before open source contracts existed, and the software was originally published as public record.

The two agencies have been promising to unite their record systems for a decade, with work on a transfer system starting in 2004 and architectural work beginning just last year.

But ZDNet Healthcare reported in the summer of 2008 it appeared the military procurement system would win, and a proprietary contract might be signed that would sunset VISTA.

Then in September a Mother Jones report called AHLTA a $20 billion boondoggle, and momentum for implementation slowed through the election season and transition.

Now the push is on again, and at minimum, the Joint Virtual Lifetime Record now under development will be transferred in a network based on open source.

With the Defense Department itself now moving to support open source tools, even more is possible.

But it is far too early for open source advocates to celebrate. Big decisions have to be made, especially on whether the VA will work to improve VISTA or scrap it for some proprietary EMR software. The VA switched its lab software to a Cerner contract a few years ago, bypassing VISTA entirely.

Most of the gains announced today, in other words, could still be taken away, and advocates of open source need to keep their eyes open and fingers ready to protest any detour off the open source road. Because if VISTA goes down, so does much of the government’s open source development effort, going back 30 years.

April 5th, 2009

McNealy thinks he is Manny Ramirez, has another think coming

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:30 pm

Categories: General, IBM, Sun Microsystems, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Sun Microsystems Inc., IBM Corp., McNealy, Professional Development, Real Estate, Team Management, Career, Business Operations, Management, Dana Blankenhorn

Sun decided to balk at IBM’s reduced offer for the company on Saturday, and today IBM walked away.

A Sun source told The New York Times “it would no longer abide by its exclusive negotiating agreement with IBM.”

Where did I hear that before, and recently? Exactly, Manny Ramirez. (Blogger Bookoldschool, from which I got this picture, reminds me that the Dodgers’ original offer was $55 million.)

You remember Ramirez, the perpetually-disgruntled slugger on the downside of his career who engineered a trade out of Boston to the Dodgers last year?

A few months ago agent Scott Boras walked away from an LA offer of $25 million with an option for $20 million in 2010.

He would continue testing the market, Boras said. Problem was, there was no market. When Ramirez finally did sign it was for just what the Dodgers offered, and some of the money was deferred.

That’s the situation McNealy and Sun find themselves in this morning, only worse. Because IBM in this case isn’t the Dodgers, it’s the Yankees.

Sun can make all the noises it wants about Cisco or HP, but that sounds a lot like Boras pretending the Giants were going to sign Manny. Or the Tampa Bay Rays. (Or my Atlanta Braves, or some Japanese team.) It wasn’t happening.

Those other deals aren’t happening for Sun, either.

Back when this started I predicted the final price would be “well south” of the initial bid, as in lower. IBM’s due diligence apparently found contracts with “change of control” bonuses on an AIG scale, and it was right to lower its price accordingly.

What happens next is that IBM offers a lower price, there are machinations to make it appear that it’s not a lower price (some of the money is deferred) and Sun accepts the offer.

Or it could go bankrupt.

April 4th, 2009

The failure of McNealy's ponytail strategy

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 8:42 am

Categories: General, Government, IBM, Sun Microsystems, business models, mergers & acquisitions

Tags: Strategy, Sun Microsystems Inc., Jonathan Schwartz, Scott McNealy, IBM Corp., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Now that IBM looks ready to sunset Sun for around $7 billion, will open source take the blame?

Open source has certainly been set up to do so.

By installing Jonathan Schwartz as CEO and loudly proclaiming a switch to open source, Sun chairman Scott McNealy tried to put himself in a heads I win, tails you lose position, the software ponytail wagging the hardware dog.

It’s possible that, without the world financial meltdown, he could have pulled it off. But Schwartz was never really the man in charge, and Sun’s numbers were never really related to its open source offerings.

Sun was always an enterprise hardware outfit. A complete collapse would prove a disaster for its customers, both large U.S. companies and the government. The current deal is the best possible outcome for everyone.

That’s because the financial collapse has hardened hearts, even at IBM, and it’s this gimlet eye that is making today’s deal possible. Draconian cuts to reach a profitable core can be criticized in good times. Now I doubt the objections carry any weight.

McNealy’s model in his turnaround effort was IBM itself, which in the 1990s used Linux to unify its product lines, open source to share its development load, and enterprise services to bring in the cash.

Schwartz was the public face of that strategy because it would lack credibility with McNealy, a Sun co-founder, seemingly in charge. But he was in charge. And as Sun began circling the drain the mask of Schwartz (and his ponytail) came off.

Thus in the end IBM was the only possible buyer, because its business model was the only possible fit. My prediction on a lower price also looks prescient.

And Schwartz? See how many read his blog when it’s being written, like this one, by just another unemployed has-been.

March 30th, 2009

Cloudgate shows IBM being treated like IBM again

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 7:25 am

Categories: Cloud Computing, General, Google, IBM, Infrastructure, Internet, Microsoft, Software as a Service, Storage, Strategy, Sun Microsystems, business models

Tags: IBM Corp., Quality, Business Operations, Dana Blankenhorn

The brouhaha over IBM’s Open Cloud Manifesto appears entirely political and that’s a good thing.  (Picture by John Blankenhorn.)

IBM got together with some smaller cloud vendors to put out a document saying, in effect, that “open clouds are happy clouds” but the four biggest vendors of cloud-based services — Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com — all responded “now just a goldarn goldarn.”

What’s happening? Distrust of IBM is what’s happening.

While today’s big four are selling cloud services, IBM is going into the business of building actual clouds. Open standards would benefit IBM, giving its customers assurances they are future-proof.

The service revenues of Big Four don’t get that help. Amazon, for instance, is getting monthly checks from their customers, customers who trust them,, and having to meet some IBM “standard” in the market is cost without benefit.

All this moved both Google and the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum to pull out of IBM’s manifesto at the last moment. They are not yet ready to make nice.

Why is this good news? Partly because IBM is being treated seriously again, suspiciously again. IBM has been using open source for years to re-enter the mainstream of competition, and it’s now mission accomplished.

Hopefully, this will also flush out the technical discussions necessary to create a real consensus going forward, an open and transparent standards process in which users are genuinely engaged and reporters get to bring popcorn.

In the end open cloud standards are in the best interests of the user community, just as open standards are good everywhere. But the market is still too new for anyone to dictate what the standards will actually be.

We don’t know whether the market will want one cloud, several clouds, or whether clouds will become, as in IBM’s vision, just another mainframe alternative. The market just has not yet sorted it out yet.

So relax and enjoy the show.