Vendor Spotlight:

SUN COO GOING OUT ON A LINUX LIMB?

The president and COO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, recently sparked some controversy by suggesting that Sun would acquire Novell in efforts to outpace IBM's Linux endeavors.

Though Novell had no comment, Schwartz told several publications that a Sun purchase of Novell could be a possibility. Sun would benefit from acquiring Novell and SuSE, mostly because IBM relies on SuSe as a counterweight to Red Hat.

In his personal Weblog, Schwartz mentioned that IBM's relationship with Red Hat and Novell was strained. He also suggested that IBM may be losing control of customers to Red Hat, which accounts for most of Linux deployments on IBM hardware. He said IBM would soon be asking customers to switch from Red Hat to SuSe.

Sun representatives had no comment, but agreed that HP and IBM are leaving the Unix space open for a Sun takeover by attempting to supplant Red Hat with SuSe.

Still, IBM's second quarter showed increasing profits in hardware and service sales.

Sun insiders say that Schwartz has used recent comments to kick-start projects within the company that may have met resistance, including open-source initiatives with Sun's Solaris operating system.

Experts are still trying to figure out what Schwartz is trying to accomplish with his recent candid comments.

In addition, experts say a Sun purchase of Novell would not have any long-term effects on IBM business. Though IBM would need Sun for the operating code, the GNU General Public License would allow the company to develop their own version of SuSE. Big Blue could even purchase another Linux distributor, including Red Hat.

Though the industry might frown on an IBM Linux version, some customers might prefer such a distribution.

Still, Sun could benefit from a Novell acquisition. Sun could propel its open- source projects using a number of technologies from Novell, for instance.

These technologies could, however, carry a lot of baggage. Novell's Netware network server operating system could end up hurting Sun in the long run instead of slowing down IBM. Migrating Novell Netware customers to Linux or Solaris-based server software, in addition to Novell's other technologies and services, could cost Sun more money than the acquisition is worth.

A settlement with Microsoft accounted for most of Sun's recent profits, so suggestions of an acquisition may be premature and cause worry among board members and stockholders.