It might be worth MS's while if it could squash Open Office, MySQL and Java. But the nice thing about Open Source projects is that if you don't like who's running them, then fork the project and continue on without the corporate sponsor.
Borland found this out the hard way when it Open Source'ed the Interbase database. Then it tried to take it closed source again. Interbase then forked, where the new Open Source project Firebird was born and now thrives. The Borland Closed Source project is now dead.

1. Regardless of Scott's very vocal anti-Microsoft rhetoric, he already sold his soul to Microsoft. Selling the body would be little more than a formality.

2. How much did Scott care about Sun's supporters when he sold his soul to Microsoft? About as much as he'd care if he sold the body also.

3. Microsoft doesn't need Yahoo technology either, but that didn't stop them from trying. In desperate times, men do desperate things.

4. Anti-trust problems? No problem! Certainly not a problem when you already own a significant share of the world's politicians.

5. Embrace, extend, extinguish. Buying Sun would complete step 1 of those three.

I didn't know that MS had any interest in buying Sun. I don't think they would be allowed to because that would further their monopoly and kill their only real competition for Office.

I use Open Office exclusively and avoid all the MS Office security holes.

Microsoft is a not a Hardware company. They just entered into partnership with Cisco on it's unified datacenter project.

Sun is a non starter. Besides they're a clear money loser. HP or Dell should step up to the plate for this turkey. Or maybe a slow lingering death of it's server business might be in order. Sun could becomes a services company, and support their software offerings.

And for the record giving MS control of Java, MySql and OpenOffice would indeed awaken the anti-trust hounds. Best not to tread down that path. Besides HP could do what Microsoft can't, actually preserve and support Sun tech.

I agree with your points and would just add that Sun is not worth anywhere near what IBM was willing to pay for it let alone what it was trading at before the deal. It would be a terrible deal for MSFT shareholders.

Little benefit and a lot of pain. Sun should be left alone as it'll soon be bankrupt in a few years anyways.

@Berni
"kill their only real competition for Office."

Sorry.... You smoking crack or living in a parallel universe?

Openoffice is not a threat to MSOffice. Never has been never will be.

Google Apps... Now that's competition. Up to the point that Office 14 will have free online variants. With Google Apps on the rise I'd hardly even say MS has a monopoly on productivity software at this stage.

If Microsoft wanted to target anything it'd be MySql.

@TA :

Sun going out of business would be a boon to Microsoft.

But someone is going to buy it. They're desperate and it's fire sale time. IBM, Cisco, HP, DEll... one of them is going to buy Sun.

"Some people are suggesting that Microsoft should bid for Sun,". This is the first I've heard of any such suggestions. Actually the Sun-IBM discussions is a sign of Microsoft's falling status. The software world is revolving less and less around Redmond.

Joe Wilcox says:
"Besides, IBM remains Sun's most likely suitor."
----------------------------------------------------
I have to agree with that statement Joe. Although both Google and Apple have enough cash on hand to purchase Sun as well. Google might even be a good a good match too, as Sun would extend Google in areas that Google is not in.

Sparc is generally being written off by most bloggers should IBM buy Sun. One wonders what would have happened if Sun had tried to make a Sparc line for the consuming public, in an effort to bring down the cost of Sparc hardware, by producing more? Sparc would be the poison pill for M$ here, as it would have to be written off completely, as no Windows port to my knowledge. Could you see M$ selling sparc computers that would only run UNIX, Opensolaris, or Linux? LOL

Quote CC.Torment "Never has been never will be."
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Rubbish, you cant predict the future and anyone who has been involved in IT since it hit the "mainstream" mass market would know that predictions and market trends are impossible to predict and come from the most unlikely areas.
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Atari's Jaguar? Highest spec of the consoles at the time, a complete flop.
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The 520ST loosing out to the A500 merely because of a movie A500 pack (the Batman pack) which, due to delays in the movie release further bolstered the "exclusiveness" of it and led the Amiga to a reign in the 16bit computer market for many years.
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The humble BBS being replaced the Net?
Who would have predicted that Twitter and global self promotion would become popular pastimes. Or indeed shilling? ;)
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If we want to look at more recent times, how about Microsofts commitment to HDdvd? They seemed sure it was the horse to back, they were wrong. That to me either shows rather poor foresight or, the IT world is indeed unpredictable.
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To say anything will "never happen" in IT is at best uninformed or at worse deceitful.
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CC.Torment, if you had used the word "unlikely" then it may have been a little more reasonable.
Since Microsoft has dominated the IT world for so long, I dont think anyone would have predicted what we have today. Who would have thought that in many areas of MS's business, smaller firms could come along and make better, alternative products that were more popular.
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If the IT world was as predictable as CC.Torment seems to suggest, then I think Microsoft would have been able to counter Google.

"Sun is a non starter. Besides they're a clear money loser."

Sun sounds like a perfect candidate to add to Ballmer's growing stable of misfits, money-losers and, otherwise failed initiatives. It would give Ray Ozzie something to do.

Seriouly Gobbles.

Wake the fuck up.

OpenOffice is relegated to the trash heap. You know it and I know it. It neither has nor ever will the adoption rate of G-Apps or MSOffice.

Tell you what. Let me know when it becomes something even remotely mainstream and I'll be the first to break out a fucking blowtorch to un-thaw hell which will clearly have frozen the fuck over.

Goblin;

No, I would have to agree with CC.Torment on the regards to OpenOffice. It is really a no threat situation with Microsoft Office in the realm of professional office productivity, you know seriously getting things done. You can argue all you want, but it won't change the fact at all. Linux has been around for a few decades now, and still now real traction, Ubuntu is still the most promising, but so is rain clouds that don't deliver -- Rather boring. I believe in alternatives, I use alternate software myself, alternate choices other than Linux, and OpenOffice.

Though I am not a Microsoft shill, I prefer the alternatives, MS over anything Linux or OpenOffice to date.

It must suck though, you know, spending all this time to down-play Microsoft's alternative line of products and promote Linux -- Hours, days, weeks, months, and of course years, why?

I mean, if you are not getting paid, no laptops, no nothing? For what man?

Just to tell people that there is other software out there, other than Microsoft? Seems like a waste to me. Oh well, regardless on the pro Linux camp, no matter how hard they yell, they just seem to drive people in the droves quicker to Microsoft in reality. I mean, after all the time I spent here reading and viewing the legions of comments, I see no success with your endeavors, though I complement you and your Linux chums on the endurance and perseverance, and albeit, futile.

CC.Torment spewed:
"Wake the f*** up.

OpenOffice is relegated to the trash heap. You know it and I know it. It neither has nor ever will the adoption rate of G-Apps or MSOffice.

Tell you what. Let me know when it becomes something even remotely mainstream and I'll be the first to break out a f***ing blowtorch to un-thaw hell which will clearly have frozen the f*** over."

@CC.Torment:
Wow! Three F-bombs in one post. Your mother must be very proud of you.

@Joe:
Joe, are you going to continue to let your site turn into a worthless mound of stinking filth and mindless venom? The staff behind eWeek are not impressive in their inability to figure out how to moderate the ever-growing rot that is festering on your increasingly worthless blog.

Joe, my advice to you is this: If you can't figure out how to moderate this vile cesspool of yours, then your good reputation rests entirely on your taking down your current picture and putting up one that shows a brown paper bag over your head.

Re: "OpenOffice is relegated to the trash heap. You know it and I know it."

Aside from the fact that there is nobody that has EVER posted by the name of Gobbles, here are but a few of the links to that "trash heap" of which you speak:

List of organizations using ODF:
opendocument.xml.org/book/export/html/89

Major OpenOffice.org Deployments:
wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments

Not too shabby for a trash heap.

But wait! There's more! Search for Open Office Adoption at Google via:
www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=open+office+adoption+&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

And find:
"Results 1 - 10 of about 95,000,000 for open office adoption with Safesearch on. (0.28 seconds)"

That's one HUGE trash heap!

No wonder Steve Ballmer is twisting in rage! He doesn't believe that Open Office is relegated to the trash heap, or he wouldn't spew as follows:

getch.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/openoffice-popular-than-google-docs-steve-ballmer/
"Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has commented that OpenOffice’s free office suite is five times more popular than Google docs."

And:
blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10464
"When asked if Ballmer was dismissing Google Apps, he said that Google has “very primitive” capabilities. “We have better competition today than Google Docs and Spreadsheets. We get more competition from OpenOffice and StarOffice frankly,” said Ballmer."

Even the mighty Steve Ballmer disagrees with you!

If it had a funding ability enough for Fujitsu, Sun might have been purchased. Actually, Fujitsu is holding the deficit, and it doesn't have the funding ability only of the purchase of Sun.

Hey Philly....

Heres another F-Bomb.

Go fuck yourself.

And another....

Fuck you.

See I'm not even going to "pretend to be civil" because quite honestly you're not worth the effort.

Don't like my F-Bombs? Don't fucking read my posts or fucking complain to the editor. Oh wait... he doesn't give two shits.

Guys , Ive been reading this blog for a long time but since ive been back from holiday ive just been reading all bad words and bad attitudes. This isnt what this blog was about only a couple of months ago. Can we all be civil to each other, i know microsoft is dying but really, lets be happy and know that a better time is coming. Maybe from google or linux of ibm but someone is going to replace microsoft soon. So lets all be nice and say kind words. Thanks all. PS lets get rid of all the new names that spew filth.

Be thankful that you do not ever run into these sorts of people in real-life. They are very protective over their little support-scam and will say/do almost anything to protect it.

http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2009/03/tempers-flare-as-recession-creeps-into.html

It's not their fault, they are slow to react to a changing marketplace and probably have kids to feed.

They can cope with competition from Apple because it is fairly well contained, Linux drives them mad because there is nothing they can do to stop it eating away at their business of reinstalling Windows machines.

Add that to the fact that Microsoft are eating their lunch with Azure and you can see those guys are under a lot of stress at the moment. They probably are too old to learn anything new, yet too young to retire. I would be upset and angry if I were them.

We should be more understanding of them, they are losing their jobs and people like us do not always understand what they are going through.

@Joe Wilcox:
Kitkat has a point Joe. The profanity that is being used on your site by the sock puppet NKnow, CCTormet, is there to stop the discussion and destroy your site's effective interest. That post should be deleted, as it adds nothing to the discussion, except profanity and personal attack.

@Kitkat:
Good to see the real Kitkat back. The profanity of certain M$ supporters (and their sock puppets) started back when they could no longer debate in a meaningful way, and therefore their supply of "free" laptops became threatened. The profanity is an attempt to kill the site since the shill/troll cannot control the content.

@Philosopher :
It looks like you struck a nerve there. You know you are doing good when you become a target of the evil empire. Maybe this link will help others out there save a lot of money:
http://www.openoffice.org/

@billybob:
AGREED. Also, as I stated, those "free" laptops are in danger for shills as well.

Oh CC.Torment, youre such a hoot. You could have created a more original sock puppet than "Smackdown Gobbles" if you wanted to agree with yourself.
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That being said, After sifting through your usual digital bile and immaturity, I noticed one sentence that stood out, that being:
"OpenOffice is relegated to the trash heap. You know it and I know it."
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Which maybe should be passed to the French police, who apparently dont agree with you and have recently migrated to Open Office. Then again, from your posting style CC.Torment, Im sure everyone will agree you are far more informed and Im sure the French Police will "come to their senses soon"
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CC.Torment, if your aim here is to highlight a new level of ignorance, well done, youve done it. You havent answered the counter post to your sillyness because you cant. I wonder, who are you trying to impress? Maybe Steve B has some master plan, or maybe you are simply after attention.

Sorry for second post, but there is more Id like to say and I hit the post button early.
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Quote "I mean, if you are not getting paid, no laptops, no nothing? For what man?
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I know, its terrible isnt it? Fancy promoting something without getting financial reward? Fancy me supporting software purely because of honest held belief instead of being bribed with gifts.
I think your statement Mr Smackdowngobbles says it all and also points out the reason why the alternative view needs to be posted.
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Youre completely right of course Smackdown gobbles!?!?!, why should anyone post anything unless they are being paid for it? Does that include you then? Did you post that because you are being paid to do so, or are you like the rest of us who post because we want to put our opinion across? If you are like the rest of us then I suggest you rethink your argument, lest you look a little silly.

Re: "Don't like my F-Bombs?"

Oh, I really don't much care one way or another. Your language is a reflection on YOUR parents, not on mine or anyone else's. And Joe's continued acceptance of it is a reflection on him and his employers, not on me or you or anyone else.

So don't worry. I've survived raising teenagers. I've heard far worse.

I just don't expect to see your style of writring on a professional blog. But hey, everyone makes mistakes. And my mistake is assuming that this blog is a professional endeavor. Mea culpa.

IMHO Java should keep in Sun HQ but why can't they have a new deal on let Microsoft re-embedding again the JVM in their OS versions.

This would bring again Java to the top and will re-open again closed doors to all java coders in the world, as a c# alternative, also would avoid the annoying task of manually downloading and installing the Java engine.

Regards,
Miquel
CEO Netretina