Summary
While many people are focusing on the hardware issues of an IBM acquisition of Sun, I think that the software ramifications are at least as important. IBM is already one of the key players in open source software and acquiring Sun would give them one of the key properties in the open source market - the MySQL database. The implications of such an acquisition are varied, but almost all positive.
Analysis
Having paid a billion dollars for MySQL, Sun has really done very
little with it again confirming many people's opinion that, with the
exception of Java, Sun really doesn't know what to do with its software
assets.
IBM is not only a major player in open source, they
also understand how to build, market and support databases as well as
any company in the world (sorry, Oracle). If IBM can acquire Sun, don't
be surprised to see MySQL emerge as one key drivers for such a deal.
If IBM could bring their database expertise to bear on MySQL and fix it's well-documented scalability and security issues and provide integration/migration from MySQL to DB2, they would have a database story that spanned the software market from the SMB sector to the largest enterprise. Additionally, by virtue of the no/low cost of MySQL, it has a huge user-base (13MM+ users) that IBM will have access to. This opens up many intriguing possibilities for IBM in terms of leveraging their complementary software products and hardware expertise.
From a financial POV, this could be a very good deal for IBM and, for Sun stockholders, may well be their best (last?) chance to get a return on their investment. There is an interesting culture-clash brewing if the acquisition somes off and it will be intersting to see how IBM plays this and how much value they place on the human capital that would come with this deal.
Overall, what may look like a surprising deal is one that makes great sense.
