Can an Oracle control the Sun?

If you have not already heard, Oracle has placed a huge purchase bid on Sun. Sun accepted the offer after IBM walked. This is a bit of a scare move in my humble opinion. This put a lot of industry standard technology in the hands of a company that always does its own thing.

There are two major areas and one minor that scares me with Oracle in control of Sun.

First: JAVA. Lets face it, hate JAVA or not its everywhere. I mean everywhere; web Sites, applications, phones you name it. How will Oracle change the way JAVA is used, placed, run, updated etc etc. They will change it, make no mistake. Why do I feel this way? Simply look at the last 3 years of Oracle consuming companies. The hostile takeover of PeopleSoft, BEA Systems, J.D. Edwards development teams, list goes on and on. However the big name that has changed since being purchased: Siebel. Remember them? How will JAVA be used in the future? I dont have an answer on that. Could be exciting or scary. However it will be interesting.

This bring me my second fear: MySQL. What will Oracle do with this? I don't think it will good. I fear that Oracle will place some sort half-brained, vice gripping license on it as it has done with all its other products. Folks there is a reason the world uses MySQL over other databases, espically Oracles own. The internet is run on MySQL DBs. If Oracle is smart they will move some of thier products over to MySQL. It would be a massive olive branch for them. Oh wait, this is Oracle I am talking about.

Starting to see a pattern here? Oracle now has two of the most powerful internet technologies under its roof. Oracle is a company that has proven time and time again that it doesn't place nice. With Java and MySQL Oracle can make some major damage in the open source industry. Which points to OpenOffice. I have no clue on what Oracle is going to do with them. Sun was the major contributer to OpenOffice, code and finances. Oracle is not a company that gives away anything. Are we going to see this great little office suite out in the cold? I sure hope not.

Sadly the old saying applies here: "Only time will tell." I wish Sun was smart enough to take IBMs offer. These technologies would have flourished under IBM R&D. Its now in the hands of Oracle. I heard a joke the other day on this that the biggest winner out of all of this would be Microsoft. I would agree and I am not laughing.

-Boston Tech Guy