Ok this is an IT related entry, but the topic I am discussing here its quite significant to lot of corportations around the World because of its repercussions. Oracle the global leader in Enterprise Database solutions has bought Sun Microsystems. Sun in case you are not aware is behind the JAVA language, another enterprise level development platform. Sun also has hardware and very importantly MySql database under its belt which is the backbone of majority of websites that you visit everyday like facebook, amazon, yahoo etc.

So this acquisition is causing flutters across the tech world and corporations as this would allow Oracle to comeup with kick-ass rollouts by bundling Oracle products built over JAVA platform, and all that packaged inside Sun servers. Now thats like marriage made in heaven. What this also means for Microsoft is that it better start shopping around for other big players especially IBM if it wants to step inside the Enterprise level market. Microsoft is the leader in desktop and productivity systems like Windows XP and Office suite. Sun also has a very robust operating system called Solaris under its belt and Oracle will now deploy Oracle systems over Solaris for sure as Solaris is built to handle large scale deployments.

Another setback this may cause Microsoft is in its prime market of Office applications, as Sun has Open Office suite which is as agile as Microsoft Office and most importantly its free. Oracle will now have a huge army of commandos to counter Microsoft.

To make more sense here is what Oracle might end up looking:

Oracle Offering = Oracle ERP [database solutions] + JAVA [development platform] + Solaris [operating system] + Sun servers [hardware] + Applications [Open Office]

Now that is one hell of a equation and one to fall in love with.

Microsoft on the otherhand offers the following:

Microsoft offering = Operating system [Windows 2003/2007] + SQL Server [database solution] + Collaboration [Sharepoint] + Applications [Office 2003/2007]

One acquisition rumor that has been doing the rounds for quite a while is of Microsoft + SAP. SAP is the biggest competitior of Oracle in Enterprise database solutions and has a huge client base. If this ever happens then we will have 2 superpowers Oracle vs. Microsoft in the enterprise market. But till then I am very glad that Oracle has made this move as I work on Oracle apps and now we can look forward for more robust environements. I also work on Microsoft Collaboration solutions [Sharepoint] but so far Oracle has yet to offer anything to beat that. So I guess its a win-win situation for me…touche

More info [Oracle]