March 20, 2009 at 17:47NetBeans and MySQL may not survive moving under the roof of IBM
As you know, a few days ago, IBM announced its desire to acquire Sun Microsystems for a very good amount, which will be difficult for sellers to refuse. The Blue Giant hopes to improve its position in the professional equipment market, and is also preparing to confront Cisco in the server market.
But for many independent developers, the plans of the two IT giants raise well-founded fears: will they not forget about them, about Open Source and about their native projects in the heat of the market struggle? It is clear after all that none of the top managers of IBM and Sun now generally thinks what will happen to these projects, which bring almost no profit, but are extremely important for the Open Source community. Developer forums are
currently discussingthat IBM could well slow down the development of the Sun NetBeans environment, because it has its own Eclipse. Indeed, why should one company promote two IDEs at all? Especially in these difficult times. It is believed that on the second day after the official purchase of Sun, IBM representatives will announce the closure of Sun NetBeans, as well as other "competitive" projects. Here are a couple of other Sun projects that could be closed if the deal ends:
Forrester analysts also agree with such concerns. They say that IBM may well close some projects that it cannot monetize. In general, the innovative spirit inherent in Sun may not withstand the atmosphere of the tough corporate discipline that IBM has always been famous for.
However, there is another point of view. Such a giant as IBM can give a new impetus to Java projects, as it is able to invest in them much more than Sun.
In addition, all this reasoning may turn out to be speculation from scratch, because the deal may not take place. There is no official information about it yet. The Wall Street Journal published information about the negotiations between IBM and Sun with reference to an anonymous source, they are not commented on by IBM at all, so now they have the status of unconfirmed rumors.
via IDG News Service
But for many independent developers, the plans of the two IT giants raise well-founded fears: will they not forget about them, about Open Source and about their native projects in the heat of the market struggle? It is clear after all that none of the top managers of IBM and Sun now generally thinks what will happen to these projects, which bring almost no profit, but are extremely important for the Open Source community. Developer forums are
currently discussingthat IBM could well slow down the development of the Sun NetBeans environment, because it has its own Eclipse. Indeed, why should one company promote two IDEs at all? Especially in these difficult times. It is believed that on the second day after the official purchase of Sun, IBM representatives will announce the closure of Sun NetBeans, as well as other "competitive" projects. Here are a couple of other Sun projects that could be closed if the deal ends:
- GlassFish, application server (IBM WebSphere competitor)
- MySQL databases (IBM DB / 2 competitor)
Forrester analysts also agree with such concerns. They say that IBM may well close some projects that it cannot monetize. In general, the innovative spirit inherent in Sun may not withstand the atmosphere of the tough corporate discipline that IBM has always been famous for.
However, there is another point of view. Such a giant as IBM can give a new impetus to Java projects, as it is able to invest in them much more than Sun.
In addition, all this reasoning may turn out to be speculation from scratch, because the deal may not take place. There is no official information about it yet. The Wall Street Journal published information about the negotiations between IBM and Sun with reference to an anonymous source, they are not commented on by IBM at all, so now they have the status of unconfirmed rumors.
via IDG News Service