News and rumour from the USA sggests that IBM is ready to resume Sun takeover talks. Ten days ago negotiations broke after the two companies supposedly failed to agree on a price and other terms of a proposed acquisition. IBM apparently would go no higher than $7 billion, which Sun saw as under-valuing a business with $2.7 billion reserves in cash and short-term investments. In an indication of what the market is planning should Sun fail to find a buyer, Dell has launched a marketing offensive against the company with a campaign to offer Sun customers “an immediate path from legacy data centres to more open, flexible standards-based technology.” This may well throw up some interesting cost reduction opportunities for canny negotiators; either by swiching from Sun to a lower priced Dell alternative or by using Dell as a threat to encourage Sun to reduce their existing prices. What ever happens, it will be an interesting period ahead for Sun users.
Tags: IBM, SUN Microsystems