As the economy and stock market continue to struggle for strong support and positive direction, look for some major Java camp players to make significant moves. Most of which will establish the trend of hardware vendors acquiring the struggling or, at least, challenged middleware/software vendors.

Steve Anglin discusses the possible mergers of:

1. HP Acquiring BEA Systems
2. IBM Acquiring Novell
3. Dell Acquiring Sun
4. HP Acquiring/Merging with Oracle
5. Sun Merging with BEA or Oracle

Read reasoning behind such mergers (and why some may not happen)

Yawn.

and dead is going to acquire
all of us

These "speculations" may be old news and boring to techies like you and me, but IMHO they make a lot of sense among boardroom members and investment banks. As IT quickly becomes a slower growing and mature industry, like any other industries, there is only room for 2 or 3 dominant players at the top. MSFT and IBM are here to stay. Others have to jockey for position so they don't get left in the dust. Formation of mega companies that have the complete package - hardware, software (OS, middleware, database), and services is the ongoing trend. IBM is already there. HPQ is moving towards that. SUNW is far behind.

My biggest issue with the speculated mergers - how to overcome the personalities involved and overcome the jumbo egos. At the end of the day, some high-profiled gals/guys have to be pushed aside. Maybe the only solution is to let the market force decide.

I think these speculations are not boring. I'd prefer an strong pro-J2EE coalition of several big firms, rather than letting the market force decide... The market force is not lead by good products, but by good enterprises. Look at MS.

The Vendor consolidation will make J2EE market as vulnerable and vendors will start de-emphasize J2EE and try to add in their own hooks and lock-in API to make it difficult to port the code to other Servers. I think IBM is already in this path to downplay the J2EE standards http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/01/27/hnj2eemove_1.html

The bottom line is there should be more vendors in the marketplace to innovate, provide alternate solutions and competition. I am sure nobody wants IBM and MS to dictate the software market.

It is also awful to think the PC distribution company DELL that does not believe in R&D buying the innovation and R&D based SUN.I feel ORCALE or HP will buy BEA this year to increase their software stack.


Thanks,
Monickam

<Monickam>
The bottom line is there should be more vendors in the marketplace to innovate, provide alternate solutions and competition. I am sure nobody wants IBM and MS to dictate the software market.
</Monickam>

Right on. Commoditization of certain layers of the software stack will likely accelerate creation of new applications, both custom-coded and packaged, in myriads of industries. The big guys will likely own the wide spread horizontal infrastructure and tools.

But even there, would you really want to buy what the big guys are advocating? Check out this enterprise reference architecture - Fund Transfer App (integration case study) from IBM and decide for yourself if this is what you'd call a best practice.

Cheers.

Jill.

Can anyone except Microsoft afford to buy Oracle?

It's ridiculous to think Dell would buy Sun - read this good article in Business2 http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/print/0,1643,46293,00.html ... basically Dell's proposition is that all technologies become commoditized over time and the wintel standard has the price/performance advantage over time. They're more focused on OEM'ing technology and attacking high-margin businesses like servers and networking. So, for instance in Sun's business, Dell is already a big player and offers Windows and Linux as the twin de facto standards available for IT departments. Sun's model is EXACTLY the opposite of this and you can read any recent McNealy interview to get the gist of this. Overall I think Sun is on the losing side of the proposition - but whether or not that is correct will play out over time.

Chad

Left out another small J2EE player, PRAMATI

who will buy them?

No one will buy Pramati. It is to small and inconsequential.

Well, I think they have a good chance to rise like a phoenix!

Remember, its nimble, its lean, the products are good and being in India, i suppose it will have lower costs.

I dunno if anyone would buy them, but from what im seeing, the Indian market is good enough to sustain them.
They should logically present a fantastic proposition to anyone.

Normal is boring - hence I would like to keep an eye on this company, even if its small.

Rob

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030126/tech_oracle_1.html

 NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Larry Ellison, the chairman and chief executive officer of Oracle Corp. (NasdaqNM:ORCL - News), told the weekly financial publication Barron's that shares of his business software maker are undervalued and the company will emerge from the technology downturn "very strong."

 He told Barron's in an interview that Oracle might buy business software maker BEA Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:BEAS - News) at the right price, but cautioned, "We're nowhere there. We would benefit from buying them, but not much, and that's the problem."

Chad: "It's ridiculous to think Dell would buy Sun - read this good article ... basically Dell's proposition is that all technologies become commoditized over time and the wintel standard has the price/performance advantage over time. ... Overall I think Sun is on the losing side of the proposition"

I'm not sure why people are (generally) quick to assume that only one company can exist in a given market. While there are markets where monopolies are relatively natural (they call them "natural monopolies"), a market as large as the computer server market can easily sustain several large organizations and several different proprietary technologies, including Intel/IA32 (which is as much a proprietary technology as any) and Sun/Sparc and IBM/*. HP has already merged their assets into the IA64 future (discarding the Alpha and supporting PA-RISC binaries on IA64 chips) and IBM continues to try to reduce their major hardware platforms (I think they are down to only a handful now: Z series, several Power-based series, IA32 and maybe IA64).

Dell is definitely in the volume segment of the industry, and you're probably right that it is counterintuitive to consider Dell buying Sun because the business model doesn't match. However, Dell's biggest competition is HP(Q), and Sun's biggest competition comes from IBM and HP.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Easily share live data across a cluster!

I guess,Indian market for app. servers is around $15mil? ruled by large vendors yet to be 'cracked' by a small J2EE vendor and the SME segment is 'TINY' .JRuns and Tomcats again rule here!It should be noted that the a typical world class mission critical and a COMPLETE enterprise level requirement for indian companies can be met ONLY by BEA,IBM,Oracle .....India J2EE market is small and alone is not enough to sustain...

Normal is not boring. Remember,Small things may vanish quickly from the scene and make things 'abnormal'

Shirke

snip
<I guess,Indian market for app. servers is around $15mil? ruled by large vendors yet to be 'cracked' by a small J2EE vendor and the SME segment is 'TINY'>
snip

My friend, my company does outsource a lot of work to India. That market is growing by leaps and bounds. Sure its ruled by large vendors and we work with them too, but we are also evaluating Pramati. I clearly see the following advantages that Pramati has in India - local team /local support/amazing prices.

snip
<It should be noted that the a typical world class mission critical and a COMPLETE enterprise level requirement for indian companies can be met ONLY by BEA,IBM,Oracle>
snip

Not at all true, as our evaluation proves. All products have their own advantages. Though we work with BEA, to be fair to Pramati, our 'world class mission critical and Complete enterprise level application runs just as fine and efficiently on Pramati.

To my knowledge, the big vendors do not have strong local J2EE support teams, when our application is being developed in India. That prompted our evaluation of Pramati in the first place.

snip
 <.....India J2EE market is small and alone is not enough to sustain...>
snip

Yes, I would believe that the market would not be much big at the moment. As for sustaining...well, that - only time would tell. As of now, my needs are being met!

snip
<Normal is not boring. Remember,Small things may vanish quickly from the scene and make things 'abnormal'>
snip

Respect your views - however, I do not buy that logic


Rob

for me a very good move for Java
would be a merge between Bea and Borland.

Yeah,

It would be interesting to see where Borland goes!

Rob

<<My friend, my company does outsource a lot of work to India. That market is growing by leaps and bounds. Sure its ruled by large vendors and we work with them too, but we are also evaluating Pramati. I clearly see the following advantages that Pramati has in India - local team /local support/amazing prices>>

My friend ,I work out of India and I understand prety well that the total IT spending in Indian market is very less and is not growing by leaps and bounds and app.server market is $4-5 mil (correction from $15 mil)
(when US/western market itself is dull, where is India's market growing by leaps and bounds?)

BEA,IBM,Oracle,Sun and Opensource J2EE vendors typically occupy a total CUSTOMER BASE and market 99.5% in India (check it out for your self)

I will not even compare Pramati with JBOSS which has a far superior performance than Pramati on EJB container and Tomcat and Resin which has a much better performance than Pramati web container on Apache and Iplanet web servers.

JRUN's price is just $995 for enterprise edition!They too have world wide support!So $3000 of Pramati basic edition is not an amazing price after all.ESPECIALLY for Indian market.

I have seen several users satisfied by JBoss's support documentation which is JUST $20 and even I if I take support from JBOSS,that is not a big cost to me! By the way,BEA,IBM,Oracle also has dedicated local teams in India!

<<Not at all true, as our evaluation proves. All products have their own advantages. Though we work with BEA, to be fair to Pramati, our 'world class mission critical and Complete enterprise level application runs just as fine and efficiently on Pramati>> <br> <br>With Pramati,It seems that one can address the 'complete' enterprise needs this way

Pramati Server+ some third party supported connectors+some third party supported business process management and workflow systems+similar other stuff..

With BEA,IBM ,Oracle YOU GET ALL THIS at One place including support and some of them are included in the appl.servers itself.

I donot see any prices or support for such products in their website.I believe meeting total enterprise requirements with Pramati will be very expensive and painful this way?doesn't it?

(My friend, my company does outsource a lot of work to India. That market is growing by leaps and bounds. Sure its ruled by large vendors and we work with them too, but we are also evaluating Pramati. I clearly see the following advantages that Pramati has in India - local team /local support/amazing prices):

My friend ,I work out of India and I understand prety well that the total IT spending in Indian market is very less and is not growing by leaps and bounds and app.server market is $4-5 mil (correction from $15 mil)
(when US/western market itself is dull, where is India's market growing by leaps and bounds?)

BEA,IBM,Oracle,Sun and Opensource J2EE vendors typically occupy a total CUSTOMER BASE and market 99.5% in India (check it out for your self)

I will not even compare Pramati with JBOSS which has a far superior performance than Pramati on EJB container and Tomcat and Resin which has a much better performance than Pramati web container on Apache and Iplanet web servers.

JRUN's price is just $995 for enterprise edition!They too have world wide support!So $3000 of Pramati basic edition is not an amazing price after all.ESPECIALLY for Indian market.

I have seen several users satisfied by JBoss's support documentation which is JUST $20 and even I if I take support from JBOSS,that is not a big cost to me! By the way,BEA,IBM,Oracle also has dedicated local teams in India!

(Not at all true, as our evaluation proves. All products have their own advantages. Though we work with BEA, to be fair to Pramati, our 'world class mission critical and Complete enterprise level application runs just as fine and efficiently on Pramati):

With Pramati,It seems that one can address the 'complete' enterprise needs this way

Pramati Server+ some third party supported connectors+some third party supported business process management and workflow systems+similar other stuff..

With BEA,IBM ,Oracle YOU GET ALL THIS at One place including support and some of them are included in the appl.servers itself.

I donot see any prices or support for such products in their website.I believe meeting total enterprise requirements with Pramati will be very expensive and painful this way?doesn't it?

Hmmm,

As i said in my previous post- respect your views, but do not buy the logic!

As a large scale enterprise and a heavy user of Application Servers, our needs vary with different situations and this prompts the use of different application servers (including BEA / IBM / Pramati)

On the Indian market, I'm surprised, that you being from India, do not feel that your market is growing! Just my company alone is outsourcing upwards of $100mn worth of work to India.(We have lost numerous jobs to this trend, and personally im sad about it!) And its not difficult to spot others who are in the same mode....


Finally, on the choice of Pramati - I stand by my team's objective evaluation (which incidentlly has some Indian developers!) to use Pramati along with BEA (in one of our complex , mission critical applications)

JBoss / JRun????? Oh come on!

Personally i do not find your comments objective. You may had your experiences with Pramati and im afraid, I can do nothing about it!

Rob

Robert

Already $ 3-4+ billion is the software work being outsourced to India and still you know the market size addressed by Pramati in India?It has no correlation or relevance to the work being outsourced to India. forget $100 mil...

Indian market is definitely growing...No for J2EE application servers. Indian market is growing by leaps and bounds in the services arena.

I would recoomend you to read this publication
http://www.nasscom.org/artdisplay.asp?Art_id=1225

BEA offers two new entry level editions of Weblogic
https://www.theserverside.com/home/thread.jsp?thread_id=17758&article_count=11

This should be a good news for the Indian market.The prices seems to be far,far less than Pramati's

<BEA offers two new entry level editions of Weblogic
https://www.theserverside.com/home/thread.jsp?thread_id=17758&article_count=11>

Yes good news surely! I read the article
However, they are stripped down versions - not at all good for our kind of work. Read beyond and you would find that to upgrade to the full enterprise version, we still need to spend huge amt. of money.

The services market growing would surely result in an increased market for J2EE. And dont forget the government sector. I'm sure as in all countries, it would be a major potential user of technology - good enough to support local players!

As i said my friend, my team - for our situation and needs finds it good to use both Pramati and BEA

I'm convinced now you would have had some personal experience with Pramati...

Anyways thanks for the links!!

Rob

What a shame! No wonder there are no product companies coming out of India.

We Indians have not learnt anything from history. I work with the leading services firm in India and recently had the priviledge to know more about Pramati products through a J2ee seminar. They are really top class by any standard!! At least we have some one do such effort from India which Mr "a_b" firm or my firm do not dare try...

Your comments don't matter. by what i know and what i hear, Pramati's efforts are commendable!!

Wish more efforts like Pramati could come out of India!

RK

Arun

Yes, true.commendable efforts.
But as a 'customer' handling $$, I get more from using a opensource server like JBoss,JRUN

I get to sell my products more through established brands like BEA,IBM worldwide, they also helps us a lot

I may have the best diamond in my 'ear stud',But if the base is not strong.....it is going to be a useless stud

<The services market growing would surely result in an increased market for J2EE. And dont forget the government sector. I'm sure as in all countries, it would be a major potential user of technology - good enough to support local players!>

Recently after Bill gates visit to India, I saw so much news about Microsoft technology alliances in govt. sector

I think,There are many open source linux based initiatives too..Linux,Jboss,Tomcats will certainly help all governments IT initiatives a lot and save $$$..

A B

JBoss is not free...at least not when we tried it. They are charging close to Rs. 3L for support..(so what's free???)

Jrun - I don't think its going anywhere....

I do think that open source products can never be used for serious application development.

RK

I agree with Mr. Arun Kumar.
It's a great work. Pramatians are role models for students like me.
Throughout My Project I have been using Pramati Studio with Inbuilt Server.
It's great It is very easy to learn and It took less time for me to learn.
Deploying in pramati is faster thank WAS

Bottom line is that Sun is a "rocket science", R&D driven house and Dell is a volume-based commodity based business. I still don't understand where you see it as advantageous for Dell to pay billions just so they can continue to do what they do right now which is sell server hardware on i86. The bottom line is Dell would not want to invest in Sparc on a continuous basis and therefore diverge from the price/performance basis of i86 which has been the growth driver for their business from the beginning.

I am not saying Sparc is dead but I am saying Dell just wouldn't gain much from owning it. To continue the parlor M&A game mergers I would see happening are:
-IBM buys Sun
-HP buys BEA
-IBM buys Novell
-Microsoft buys Macromedia
-Dell buys a smallish services company

I think Dell is too smart to do large mergers, they usually destroy shareholder value in this business and they don't need it.

Of course, some other "possibilities":

1. IBM buying Sun.
2. Sun buying IBM.
3. Oracle buying Microsoft.
4. Microsoft buying Oracle.

For real:
What about Microsoft buying Borland?

I feel MS does not have any need to buy Borland. Borland is more towards Java/J2EE camp and it is not align with MS business. If any one thinks MS will buy Borland for Modeling, watch out their next Visio release. I feel MS may buy macromedia to integrate the flash and cold fusion with dotnet.

Thanks,
Monickam

I don't think MS will buy Borland, but not for the reasons you give. Borland makes about half of their revenues on MS technologies and are aligning themselves more that way with new .NET initiatives. But of course Borland still remains a strong Java player as well.

MS needs too keep Borland seperate so they can claim their .Net technology isn't propritatry and help them with the Monopolistics problem.

Borland want's to remain independent since that's their major hook...".Net, EJB, Win32, Linux...we have the best development tools on all those platforms"

What about IBM purchasing Sun? Or at least making a bid to purchase/merge with Sun's software division. Kill sOlaris. Take over Java, because Sun has repeatedly shown that is has no vision for it and cannot manage it successfully.

Sun has repeatedly shown that it has no vision? Wow, that's quite a wide brush that you are painting with. Sun isn't my favorite company, but I can't agree with your assertion. Sun has been well-known for the quality of its management and its products, and that should count for something. They are (or at least have been) a terrible company to try to do business with -- it used to be like pulling teeth to get them to sell you something -- but their products work and they provided us with Java, which had to have at least some vision behind it ;-)

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Easily share live data across a cluster!