If IBM had purchased Sun, things would have been easier to predict. I imagine the conversation in IBM’s boardroom going something like this: “They have a RISC chip; we have a RISC chip. Let’s phase theirs out. They have a UNIX; we have a UNIX. Let’s phase theirs out. They have Java, we have – uh – let’s keep that one!” And so on.
With Oracle, the outcome is not at all clear. Oracle is so different from Sun that they could keep pretty much everything. What parts of Sun are important depend on what kind of company Oracle is trying to become. Do they want to become a full-line systems vendor competing head-to-head with IBM and HP? Do they just want Java and MySQL, which are so closely related to their current product lines and strategies? Perhaps something more secret and clever than anyone else has thought of yet?
There’s just no telling, because Oracle is – and I mean this in the most positive and respectful way – the Crazy Ivan of the IT industry.

