What does SUN's restructuring mean for JAVA, I mean who may end up buying it?

The link http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/081114/business_us_sunmicrosystems.html carries the news of announcement of the sad state of the organization and economy. The downturn is going to hurt SUN a lot.
Also the news of restructuring @ SUN and the talk of shareholder value generation sends out a signal of a "For sale" tag. As part of its announced restructuring, Sun said its software business will be split into three divisions: Application Platform Software, run by Executive Vice President Anil Gadre; Systems Platforms, run by Executive Vice President John Fowler; and Cloud Computing and Developer Platforms, run by Senior Vice President Dave Douglas.

Application Platform Software division , i believe is the one division which will steer the ship for Java. Also i guess it will have MySQL and OpenOffice under its wings. The platform certification and professional services dision would also fall uner its purview. SUN may end up spinning of the division as separate companies to unlock the real potential for its shareholders and to their delight.

So who could be possibly the groom for the Java bride with deep pockets capable of affording the big fat wedding?

Well the contenders would be IBM,Oracle,HP & ******.

The big blue is the only company which milked the Java cow much more then SUN could do. It made a fortune out of it. But i beleive IBM's buyout may not happen , ever. The technology stack of what SUN provides and IBM has , overlaps at so many places that it really doesn't make sense for IBM to pay the fortune to buy something which it already has in its kitty.

The "think tanks" (rather a brat loose canon) at Oracle don't buy anything unless its a competition or they feel threatened. SUN in no way is either a threat or competition to Oracle with its arsenal of bows and arrows(MySQL).

HP , well to begin with HP is not so good at building sofware in the open source world.Also it has burnt its hand badly during the dot-com bubble by trying its hand in the open source arena.

So what is "******" ? Well this unamed contender is RedHat!!
With the acquisition of JBoss Redhat announced its footsteps in to the world of Java open source solution. It is in the process of building its technology stack with Linux+Java solution(JBoss). But its aresnal is yet incomplete. RH thrives completely on the software services business.
What it still lacks in its offerings are a DB(MySQL), Office Suite for enterprise customers if Linux desktop becomes mainstream (Open Office) and owning the Java services model of SUN (TCK,professional trainings etc.).

Although at first glance it looks like a benign weapon. But take a deep dive into the solutions that can be built around it.Then the big picture starts to emerge. It can easily emerge as a potential competitor to Oracle, and a one who will command respect. Also if done with good speed and agility it can easily threaten the services model of the "big blue".

The enterprise solutions that can be built around the entire application stack with a pinch of virtualizaion is simlply limitless. With cloud computing model becoming a buzz word it would be more prespcritive to build a software solution around it encompassing the whole domain from system software to enterprise solution.Which redhat is quite capable of by leveraging from the opensource world as well as from its own vault.

So the best suitor at this moment looks like Redhat, but only the time will unravel the truth.

Sun at 25 : Where are the founders now?

A nice read on tracing what the founding fathers of SUN ended up at after 25 years after giving birth to a "SUN".

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-02-2007/jw-0226-founders.html.

SUN is greasing, so will the stars in its uniform rust away?

The dwindling fortunes of SUN and all the stars in its portfolios are not able to shine out all the rumors of eminent collapse of the stars in SUN's uniform. Rumors also say that the sinking ship will take down Java along with it.Industry will abandon ship to stay afloat in the technology market.

I say that ain't gonna happen .

Java is not about a programming language. Its a platform. Its a ecosystem which has evolved and continues to do so since the past decade.Its the "Windows platform" of the enterprise application development.Its the COBOL in the making. Their is hell lot of scope for improvements and extensibility with SUN open sourcing Java. And natures law governs the technology industry too i.e. Only the adaptable will survive. Take a good look at the organisms that have evolved within the Java ecosystem. You have solutions ranging from embedded platforms to high-end scientific number crunching systems..From mobile phones to handheld devices, games and navigation systems to e-business solutions, Java is everywhere! It has penetrated almost every platform in the industry. Back in 1991, when the "Green Team" believed that the next wave in computing was the union of digital consumer devices and computers, they created the Java platform to fulfil their vision.

Mr. Duke is not a dinosaur that will disappear overnight.

Such dynamism and excitement (both wanted and unwanted, Good and bad) for software platform has not been visible for any other platform in the technology industry.

In fact I see a better Java in near future when it will fall into open source community's lap and will thrive like a legend.