With the announcement today of the multi-billion dollar acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle, the database market has suddenly been thrown into a state of flux. The earlier rumor was that IBM was interested in buying Sun.
This is especially significant because of the myriad of products owned by the merged company.
Sun has over the years positioned itself as a systems company and has expanded its sphere of influence in that arena. So what is the driving force behind this purchase? Some have argued that is is driven by the new move toward integration. According to CNet, this idea dates back to a concept called Raw Iron. In other words, it is an attempt to move Oracle from the horizontal market space it has been stuck in into a vertical market where Sun has made its mark, kind of.
