Oracle-Sun: Another IBM in other words

We might have to wait a little longer to find out the nitty-gritty of what Oracle has planned for its latest acquisiton, Sun Microsystems.

In a conference call just ended, top brass of the two firms did not take questions and seemed to be reading from prepared statements. One message that came through, however, was that this is an attempt to come up with an integrated solution. Oracle’s Larry Ellison said Oracle programs would “tightly integrate with Solaris”, describing the Sun OS as “the best Unix technology available” and Java as “the single biggest software asset” ever bought by his company. Linux was the second-most important platform and “remains extremely importamt”, he added.

With Sun on board, Oracle can offer a “database to disk” integrated solution but then isn’t this what IBM already have?

Sun’s chaiman Scott McNealy and CEO Jonathan Schwartz both said the deal was “momentous” and McNealy added that this was “two technology titans” joing forces but perhaps the most significant words came from Oracle CFO Safra Catz who pledged to build “substantially higher margins” from Sun and, with hype-squashing adherence to fiscal facts, that the deal was “larger than Hyperion, smaller than BEA or PeopleSoft”.

Oracle and Sun customers will want to hear a lot more and see a lot more before being convinced you feel.