Can't Beat 'em, then join 'em !
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3:43 AM |
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The news
Quite some time back, Oracle had acquired Sun. Now, in an attempt to catch up, Oracle's arch-rival, SAP, has acquired Sybase in a $5 billion deal. This was widely expected, since SAP was under pressure because of Oracle's stunning 'stack' strategy.
Sun had a hugely diversified product offering - the language used for many applications (Java) was theirs, the servers that a lot of companies used were theirs, the servers used an Operating system that was Sun's (Solaris) and the database that stored all the info could also have been from Sun.
The background
In early 2010, Sun was acquired by Oracle. Oracle had two hugely successful products - a suite of applications used by end-users in corporate offices, and the database that stored this info. After this merger, Oracle was in a position to offer a complete end-to-end solution to corporations, blocking out it's competitors, IBM and SAP, by offering better prices and the peace of mind that comes with dealing with only one vendor. In tech-speak, this concept is called a 'stack', with the software stacked upon an operating system, stacked upon a database, in turn stacked upon a server.
The competition
Oracle is currently the only one with a complete stack.IBM has everything except the strong ERP applications.SAP had only the application software. Now they've moved to acquire Sybase, a database.
Why the merger?
Now, it's only about half a year since Oracle acquired Sun and completed it's 'stack'. Definitely not enough time for the strategy to show any concrete results, either good or bad.
But SAP couldn't afford to wait and see if the strategy worked or not. They were placed in a sink-or-swim situation. They decided to swim. Will it work? The jury is still out on this one !!
Quite some time back, Oracle had acquired Sun. Now, in an attempt to catch up, Oracle's arch-rival, SAP, has acquired Sybase in a $5 billion deal. This was widely expected, since SAP was under pressure because of Oracle's stunning 'stack' strategy.
Sun had a hugely diversified product offering - the language used for many applications (Java) was theirs, the servers that a lot of companies used were theirs, the servers used an Operating system that was Sun's (Solaris) and the database that stored all the info could also have been from Sun.
The background
In early 2010, Sun was acquired by Oracle. Oracle had two hugely successful products - a suite of applications used by end-users in corporate offices, and the database that stored this info. After this merger, Oracle was in a position to offer a complete end-to-end solution to corporations, blocking out it's competitors, IBM and SAP, by offering better prices and the peace of mind that comes with dealing with only one vendor. In tech-speak, this concept is called a 'stack', with the software stacked upon an operating system, stacked upon a database, in turn stacked upon a server.The competition
Oracle is currently the only one with a complete stack.IBM has everything except the strong ERP applications.SAP had only the application software. Now they've moved to acquire Sybase, a database.
Why the merger?
Now, it's only about half a year since Oracle acquired Sun and completed it's 'stack'. Definitely not enough time for the strategy to show any concrete results, either good or bad.
But SAP couldn't afford to wait and see if the strategy worked or not. They were placed in a sink-or-swim situation. They decided to swim. Will it work? The jury is still out on this one !!
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