Microsoft Windows under siege.

Operating systems wars have been skirmishes. They haven’t produced any major upsets. Microsoft dominates the OS completely and despite the Linux aficionados, Microsoft’s strong hold remained unchallenged especially at the low to medium end servers and in desktops. It is a different story in the mobile space though.

But things are slowly changing and my sense is that in the next couple of years, Microsoft will face more heat compared to anything that it has ever faced on the server front.

Microsoft will have to increasingly contend with VMWare which has bolstered its arsenal with its acquisition of Springsource – maker of open-source software development tools which can analyze and optimize the application performance. This could allow VMWare to undermine the Windows operating system.

Despite all the talk about the huge growth of virtualization, the untapped market is still large. Currently virtualization has been done mostly at the data centers (which is where the complexity is and where the cost savings are) and even there the current estimate is that less than 25% of the servers are virtualized. This creates a big opportunity. It is no surprise that Cisco wants a piece of this market and it is targeting them with its Unified Computing system.

Well, there’s a desktop market and a notebook market and it will require a different approach to tackle this market. Currently the focus seems to be on the servers.

Microsoft cannot afford to ignore this market. In fact it announced Hyper V Virtual machine as part of its Windows Server 2008 and it is likely that it will offer several enhancements in time to come. Moreover, Microsoft can afford to give its Hyper V free. With other contenders like Citrix Xen, Virtual Iron remaining in the fringes, it is going to be a battle between Microsoft and VMWare. And again, this battle is not just one of functionality or product features, but increasingly fought on a business model.

In some way, it could very well resemble the browser wars of the nineties.

But from Microsoft’s standpoint the battle for the OS has another contender. Google with its web based software for office and productivity applications is also undermining the Windows operating system.

The early impact on Microsoft is here to see. However it is too early to announce the demise of Windows.

So, the skirmishes are over and the battle is being fought on many fronts.

IBM girds itself against Cisco.

A few months back I wrote about Cisco’s game changing play and in the process declaring war on IBM and HP. I also indicated that an imminent realignment of alliances is likely. I have been following the subsequent developments with a lot of interest and here’s an update.

I have not seen HP do much in terms of launching an offensive to Cisco’s play. Either they do not believe in Cisco’s ability to build a carrier class digital IT infrastructure or they are tied up with other myriad issues.

IBM on the other hand has upped the ante with a series of moves. It entered into a fairly strong relationship with Juniper Networks. While IBM did mention that it was also bolstering its relationship with Cisco, for the discerning eye it was just PRspeak.

Brocade’s Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) will be offered as the IBM Converged Switch B32 and 10Gb Converged. This will strengthen the OEM agreement Brocade with IBM earlier this year to resell Brocade’s Foundry switches.

The battle for data centers will invariably shift to the cloud. And the shift may even be quicker than one can envisage. And the first vendor that are able to demonstrate that data can be moved from one cloud to another without a hitch, has a significant advantage. With the agreements with Juniper and Brocade, IBM seems to have a strong advantage over Cisco.

It looks like an interesting battle ahead between IBM and Cisco. To me, it looks like HP is still being hesitant.

Oracle acquires Sun — Unexpected and interesting

Oracle announced that it is going to acquire Sun for $9.50 in cash valuing Sun at about $7.5 billion or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.

The deal comes after talks between IBM and Sun failed. I had analyzed why the IBM may not really need Sun here and here. IBM had offered $9.40 per share. Oracle’s offer is a 40% premium over Sun’s closing price.

However this acquisition by Oracle is both unexpected and very interesting. Sun’s software assets could become better strategic assets to Oracle than Sun’s server or storage business. After Sun acquired MySQL , the relationship between Oracle and Sun had soured. Oracle had acquired Innobase to neutralize MySQL but it hadn’t made much headway. Of course Java could become the pivot of Oracle’s middleware strategy.

The open source database angle becomes interesting. Having MySQL in its stable gives Oracle access to its huge developer base and web applications market. Will Oracle kill MySQL to protect the Oracle 11g cloud margins or milk it for whatever it is worth before allowing it to die in neglect will be interesting to watch.

Sun has a large installed base and becomes an immediate target market for Oracle to target with its applications.

Since Sun’s manufacturing is already outsourced, there’s nothing much left for Oracle to do. It can sell whatever is left in the hardware business — the storage, server and any other chip business to either HP or Dell.

Oracle now fine tunes the database performance on Solaris and sells a combo. HP and others will feel the impact.

Oracle gets the scale and muscle to attack IBM.

On the overall, there seems to be a better strategic fit between Oracle and Sun, than Oracle and IBM. Both companies also have a strong feisty culture and hyper competitive spirits so integrating them could be easier.

What is also interesting is that Sun’s board approved the deal quickly and unanimously after just scoffing IBM’s deal which was just 10 cents less per share.

IBM — Sun deal fails?

IBM withdrew its $7 billion offer for Sun reports the NY Times which reports that Sun believed the offer was too low and the offer was rejected by the Sun Board. The Wall Street however is not so categorical about the rejection and believes the deal will go through.

I wrote earlier that IBM doesn’t need Sun. It is Sun that needs IBM. Sun has been in the market for a long time courting probable suitors.

The failure of the deal will hurt Sun more than anyone. Customers will be wary of purchasing Sun gear. Moreover the management will be questioned about their commitment to a go-it-alone strategy. Hence Sun may accept the lower price offered by IBM. Sun doesn’t have much choices left.

My assessment is that Sun’s problems may actually worsen after the failure of the talks. IBM comes out unscathed.