IBM-Sun: The customer POV

Bob Warfield tells Sun to run with the IBM offer.

But customers need to be a bit wary. IBM has a track record of buying past-prime companies (often like PwC IBM picked up at 1/6th the value HP had discussed paying but wisely decided against), then continuing to milk them, rather than innovating around them.  I can only think of one IBM acquisition in recent memory which was in a growing, early market – Daksh, a BPO player. 

Bob says the world needs some counterbalance to Oracle. I wholeheartedly agree.

Unfortunately with IBM you risk replacing the “red stack tax” with a “blue stack tax” - Tivoli, Websphere, DB2 and in some shops, Lotus - all long in the tooth and panting to climb the price/performance curve.

I hope I am wrong with Sun. Hope IBM uses it to get serious about clouds and open source.