Not many of you agreed with me two weeks ago, when I predicted that Oracle would be the one to snap up Sun Microsystems following the breakdown of talks with IBM. But as it turns out, Larry Ellison did -- and he was the only one that really mattered.
What has us all buzzing now, of course, is what will happen next. The Oracle acquisition of Sun is definitely an event that will reshape the industry. In the short term, however, Oracle claims it can wring $1.5 billion in profit from Sun this year and $2 billion the next. I don't know how it plans to do that, but since Larry took my advice earlier, I thought maybe he'd like to consider these suggestions, post-merger:
[ Neil McAllister foresaw Oracle's Sun takeover; find out why he thought the deal would make sense. | For full coverage of the Oracle-Sun deal, see InfoWorld's special report. ]
10. Unify your identity management products. The identity management market is crowded, with few stand-out offerings. LDAP servers are a dime a dozen. Thinning this herd will make it easier to acquire customers and market aggressively against the real threat in this space: Microsoft, which is developing an identity management platform based on Active Directory. Cherry-pick the best from your existing technology and Sun's stack, discard redundant efforts, and forge a strong leadership role while you still can.
9. Consolidate global development teams. Everyone hates it when American tech companies move development jobs overseas. Doubtless more heads will roll as a result of Oracle's Sun acquisition, but at least some of them won't be on these shores. While Sun maintains development facilities in India, China, and elsewhere, Oracle is an acknowledged master of offshoring. By redeploying its existing overseas staff, Oracle can create efficiencies in Sun's software divisions that Sun couldn't have managed on its own.
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