Us and Them

So, Oracle pulled the trigger. Obviously, this happened fast enough that there's not a detailed integration plan in place. I have no inside knowledge but I suspect there may have been a substantial proportion of gut-feel in this deal, along with exhaustive analysis. So first, nobody really knows, in detail, what's going to happen. Second, the very few people whose guts had that feel are–appropriately–not saying anything in public. Third, it seems like everyone with a prognosticator's megaphone is blaring away, so why should I compete? But I can't resist joining in the fun, and I'd like to invite everyone along.

Here's how it works. I've assembled a big table of all the places you might line up the Oracle and Sun organizations. I've numbered each line. Important: The table is doubtless incomplete and contains errors.

So, let's fill in the links. Write (or find) something online, or in the comments below, and let me know (email or comment) with a link & line number. Also suggest new lines and correct errors.

I'll aggregate all the links and maybe we'll end up with a substantial piece of crowd-sourced Oracle/Sun integration wisdom. I'd love to get some juicy insider voices into the mix.

I've seeded the links column a bit, trying to avoid generic-journalism pieces and looking for strong individual voices addressing specific subjects.

I should emphasize that there's nothing here that represents my own opinion about how Sun and Oracle should best be put together. I'm reserving that for my employer, should it be interested.

	Business
	They Have	We Have	Links
B1	A recent track record of profitability and growth.	Disappointing financial performance in recent years.
B2	A well-above-average record of success in making and absorbing acquisitions.	An extremely mixed record with acquisitions.	*
B3	A high proportion of revenue from large Enterprise customers.	A similar proportion, with customer overlap near 100%.
B4	Outside the Enterprise space, reliance on channel partners, which has been successful but troublesome to manage.	A similar structure, with substantial partner overlap.
B5	No significant visibility or revenue in the startup/Web 2.0 space.	Considerable visibility but little revenue in the startup/Web 2.0 space.
B6	A sales-force that the evidence suggests is highly competent, if somewhat feared.	A salesforce that has been re-organized repeatedly in recent years and been blamed, rightly or wrongly, for disappointing top-line performance.
B7	A consulting/services arm that is not in the big leagues.	A consulting/services arm that is not in the big leagues.

	Products
	They Have	We Have	Links
P1	Several databases: Oracle, Times10, Berkeley-DB.	A database: MySQL.	*
P2	A distro, Unbreakable Linux.	An operating system, Solaris.
P3	(Nothing comparable)	Strong influence over the direction and implementation of Java.
P4	Identity management.	Identity management.	*
P5	App server middleware, BEA-flavored.	App server middleware, Open-source flavored.
P6	A wide range of business application software.	(Nothing comparable)
P6	A Software-as-a-Service platform.	(Nothing comparable)
P7	(Nothing comparable)	SPARC servers, both Web-oriented many-core and big honkin' mainframe style.
P8	(Nothing comparable)	Tons of x64 boxes in every possible configuration of desktop, rack-mount, and blade.
P9	(Nothing comparable)	Network switches, tape libraries, racks, and other miscellaneous data-center gear.
P10	The Exadata “database machine” line-up, co-branded with HP.	A brand-new line of storage appliances.	*
P11	There's now an Oracle Cloud Computing Center.	A just-emerging cloud offering.
P12	An IDE, JDeveloper.	An IDE, NetBeans.
P13	(Nothing comparable)	An office-productivity suite, OpenOffice.org.
P14	Virtualization via Oracle VM.	Virtualization via VirtualBox and xVM.
P15	(Nothing comparable)	Java Mobile Edition; ubiquitous, but future uncertain in the smart-phone context.

	Culture
	They Have	We Have	Links
C1	Culture of aggression permeates the company.	Some high-tech aggression, but also a certain amount of “rising tide floats all boats” feeling.
C2	(No insight)	Sun's workforce is emotionally battered following on many quarters of unsatisfying business results and repeated rounds of layoffs, culminating in this acquisition.	*
C3	Huge success in monetizing closed-source software.	Widespread belief that the future of software is increasingly open-source.	*