Get ready with the corporate indigestion tablets

On the face of it, the deal seems primarily to be about boosting IBM's share of the server and workstation market. But there are some technology implications. Apart from its obvious interest in Java, Sun maintains a SPARC based processor range. Its latest offering, unveiled in late 2007, is the eight core UltraSPARC T2 and Sun believes the part still leads the multicore market. SPARC processors are also available as IP cores and the architecture has been licensed to a number of other companies, including Fujitsu. If IBM does acquire Sun, where would that leave the SPARC architecture? IBM would probably not have a great deal of interest in maintaining a processor range that effectively competes with its POWER architecture. What it would gain, assuming the engineers decided to move, would be an influx of innovative designers. But how quickly that innovative thinking could be translated into IBM processors is open to question. Just as the technologies might clash, so too might the cultures. IBM is, despite its continuing efforts, still seen very much as a 'dark blue suit' company. Sun, by contrast, is much 'looser'. The top executives are equally different. IBM might well swallow Sun, but digesting it will be an interesting challenge.