I was at Oracle Open World yesterday when I heard the rumor that IBM was going to buy Brocade. At the time, I was meeting with a group that had collective industry experience of more than 100 years. We all laughed this off as hearsay.
The fact is that IBM already OEMs equipment from Brocade (as well as Juniper) so it is not lacking in engineering experience or alternatives. Does IBM want to start a stand-alone networking business? Does it want to OEM Fibre Channel switches to and HP? Does it want to bet on Brocade/Foundry Ethernet switches against the rest of the industry? No, no, and no.
This is not the only silly rumor we’ve heard lately. Last week, Microsoft was going to buy Symantec. Yeah sure, there are no antitrust implications there. And does Microsoft really want to buy a company that has about a dozen products that are redundant to its own?
How about Oracle buying HP? Larry may be spinning this up for fun, but it’s simply crazy talk. Oracle, a software company focused on business applications and industry solutions, wants to get into the PC and printer businesses? Yeah, I know, “What about servers and storage?” To which I answer, “What about Sun?”
These rumors are circulating because of the recent uptick in M&A activity, but my strong bet is that nothing remotely similar will happen. The rumors must then be coming from one of two sources:
Not all mergers make sense, but there tends to be some business logic inherent in most transactions. Let’s try and remember that before spreading rumors for personal or unethical gain.
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Tags: Brocade, HP, IBM, Juniper Networks, McAfee, Oracle, Symantec
Jon, I’ll repeat a tweet I’ve been reposting for a couple of days now when I’ve “had enough” of twitterville:
“in the absence of excellence, mediocrity is praised”
Thank you for an excellent blog that cuts right to the chase.
-Chapa
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