Snorkel will be a bloody mess! Oracle has no systems experience.

What are the possible drivers for a SNORKEL (Sun Oracle)?

* Oracle Hardware? Oracle is claiming that highly specialized and tuned hardware can turn in up to 100x performance. So why not mash up Sun systems and Oracle to extend the Oracle appliance concept, already announced in partnership with HP.

>>my comment is this is not enough. With Oracle’s lack of experience in systems, this will be exceedingly hard for them to execute. They will try, but it will be bloody and difficult.

* MySQL: Oracle has long been rumored to be targeting RedHat for acquisition. So they are certainly exploring open source. In the database area, they are king, so the king of open source databases is not an unusual desire.

>>the problem with this is that Sun has already lost control of MySQL. With the MySQL team out of the company and the code base forking, there’s very little leverage other than professional services. Oracle provides almost *no* leverage in professional services compared to IBM.

* Cost synergy: Safra Catz, the CFO of Oracle has said she will make the Sun Hardware business “profitable”. This would mean burning the research team to the ground, as well as making all kinds of other dramatic cost cuts.

>>this will make sense. The party ended a long time ago at Sun, and although extremely grim in human terms, calling the police and having them break up what’s left and send people home is likely to generate a small amount of energy. It just requires new leadership to admit failure.

* The secret agenda:

>> Oracle has long held that there are “too many software companies”. However, they have long been envied by the likes of IBM and others for their higher margin product centric approach. They have yet to be seduced by the low margin services business. Margins in the services business have been impacted by offshoring and Oracle has shied away from this approach as it would make them a “weaker IBM”.

>> By promising to make Sun hardware “profitable”, Oracle seems to be suggesting that growth in software alone is not sufficient and that consolidation should be extended. Instead of taking a fundamental open source approach which is primarily driven by services revenue anyway, Oracle is moving to a systems approach. This is not a terribly optimistic acquisition in my opinion. On the one hand, it shows Oracle as acquisitive and opportunistic–but we knew that. But I bet there are many forces inside of Oracle who are dead set against this deal. Oracle doesnt have the skills to pull this off, and if there is a rationale for the deal, it’s being driven out of the CFO side of the shop, not from the software product side.

>> Shocking to think that internal to Oracle the finance side could run roughshod over the software strategy. This could point to weak financial projections.

>>This means that the game continues to be owned by consolidators and life is bitterly hard for the innovators.

My 2 cents,
Miko