Acquisition TuesdayAcquisition Tuesday

Today, Sun announced their acquisition of MySQL, and Oracle announced their acquisition of BEA. Let's see which one gets more attention.Both Sun and Oracle announced large deals today. Sun said it was paying $800 million cash and assuming about $200 million in options in the acquisition. Oracle said it will acquire all outstanding shares of BEA for $19.375 per share in cash; a deal worth $8.5 billion.

Although the Oracle deal is larger in terms of overall dollars, in my opinion, the Sun-MySQL deal is bigger in overall impact to the open-source community. For Sun, this further cements them as an open-source software leader, clearly targeting the Web 2.0 world of developers. For MySQL and its customers, the infusion of resources by a larger company like Sun should help it improve and grow. For an excellent analysis of the deal, open-source, and the database market, be sure to check out Jonathan Schwartz's blog at http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/winds_of_change_are_blowing.

For BEA customers, the future is not as clear. For starters, Larry Ellison has stated that WebLogic will be absorbed into Oracle's Fusion suite of software. Does this mean that WebLogic will replace Oracle's existing application server (something that might upset existing Oracle customers), or will the products be merged together in some way? Either way, it will take some time for the details to be worked out.

One other thing is apparent; consolidation in the Java marketplace represents a new stage in Java EE's maturity. Will we see more acquisitions in the coming months as companies compete for more of the Java EE pie, or will this open the door for new products and ideas in the enterprise space? Write back and share your opinions.

-EJB