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Cisco's decision to create a monolithic environment, and to sell servers in competition with HP, IBM and other erstwhile partners, was just the first salvo in a battle for domination of enterprise data centers. IBM's aborted attempt to acquire Sun was the next logical retort, and as my colleague Eri...
Given current street prices on low-end PC components, manufacturers could probably build and sell a $100 PC, including a monitor, shattering the current PC price floor. Chances are that it will happen within the next 18 months.
There's plenty of evidence that Dell is planning a significant acquisition. The question is whether the target might be Sun Microsystems.
The first quarter of 2009 was remarkably, if predictably, quiet where mergers and acquisitions in the tech sector were concerned. While it's still too early to tell if the current run-up in stocks will unfreeze the M&A market, the first sector to see renewed activity may well be in IT security s...
Salesforce.com introduced mobile versions of its software today in the hopes of upselling customers to more expensive versions of its offering. The so-called 'mobile lite' application supports Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and iPhone units and is free to some customers -- but not all, despite the compa...
EMC is preparing itself for a coming war for the run of corporate data centers. EMC has steadily added by acquisition or internal development a range of tools allowing customers to manage access to content, storage capacity and infrastructure availability. The company also owns more than 90% 84% ...
Microsoft and Sun might not be a perfect fit for each other, as Joe Wilcox and my colleague Erik Sherman wrote in response to my argument that Microsoft should yank Sun out from under IBM's feet. But I'm not arguing that Sun would be a perfect fit for Microsoft. In fact, I'd go so far as to say t...
Google faces challenges to Google Books class action settlement, a $20 million payment to get rid of the AdWords budget cap suit, and the reinstatement of a trademark suit; Ritz Camera to close 40 percent of all its stores; Smart Technologies sues NextWindow; Swedish antipiracy law scares off a third of its international Internet traffic; European Patent Office revokes a key patent used by Oerikon, at the behest of Applied Materials; Silicon Graphics files for bankruptcy; and SeeqPod also files for bankruptcy.
My colleague Michael Hickins has made the argument that Microsoft should acquire Sun Microsystems now that talks have apparently broken down between Sun and IBM. I've got to disagree. Even though Microsoft could clearly afford the price tag, it would be a foolish choice for almost more strategic rea...
Microsoft has a perfect opportunity to swoop in and snag Sun, accomplishing several goals at once. While most reports have noted that the collapse of the merger talks between Sun and IBM represents an opportunity for HP, Cisco or some other infrastructure vendor to step into the breach and acquire S...
IBM's bid for Sun was always an iffy proposition given the magnitude of the deal. Big deals are by nature difficult to structure, which also explains why so many of them rarely work out as expected, even when they are consummated. Peter Fader, a professor at the Wharton School of Business noted t...
According to The Wall Street Journal, acquisition talks between IBM and Sun Microsystems are "on the brink of collapse" today for a number of reasons, including too low a price and too much ability for IBM to back out of the deal. Perhaps it's a negotiation tactic. But chances are more likely that we're seeing another example of tech acquisition ego, where management and directors of a former high flier know that they are worth so much more -- and management and directors of a long-time high flier assume that hardball always works.
Salesforce.com and NetSuite are the unlikeliest of enemies. Just a few years ago, the companies were at the advance guard of software-as-a-service, a burgeoning new industry that promised to eliminate the high licensing fees and onerous maintenance costs associated with buying on-premise softwa...
New technologies and business models -- whether cloud computing or Intel's Nahalem, which seems positioned to become the first broadly popular 64-bit system -- can have enormous impact on the software industry. We spoke with Judith Hurwitz, CEO of Hurwitz & Associates and noted software market expert.
Helping someone out of a desperate strait is considered an act of human kindness. But when the other party won't climb out of a death trap and has the key to your safe, a rescue is protecting your self-interest. That's exactly the position that Web-based companies face with old line media producers. They ultimately need the content for the Internet ecosystem, but media executives seem determined to take their companies down, with the latest evidence being another dubious attempt to prove the "superiority" of traditional advertising channels.
