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Sun's Deep Tech Bench Is Biggest Asset For Oracle

The most interesting omission I've seen in all the nattering about Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems is discussion of whether the technical talent at Sun will mesh better with their new masters than they would have had the acquiring party been IBM. My counterintuitive answer is, yes.

The reason this is a non-obvious viewpoint is that Oracle's corporate culture is anything but all peaches and light. (My friend Joe Wilcox over at eWeek writes that "If the companies were bears, Sun would be a panda and Oracle a grizzly.") Sure, it's true that the Sun folk who make the migration over to Oracle, post-acquisition, will find a less laid-back environment.

However, they'll also find a place that's more focused (laser-focused, in fact) and less roiled by daily rumors about what's going to happen to the busy. And, if they're willing to stand up and fight for their (technology) beliefs, those former Sun engineers and developers are likely to make a big impact on Oracle's future direction.

Contrast that with IBM, which has achieved a much more touchy-feely outward brand than Oracle. (How could it not?) Yet internally, IBM remains very much a monolith, a behemoth where decisions come down from the hierarchy and are implemented sans question. Which is not to say that IBM isn't a great company. It has numerous strengths, not the least of which is its deep technical bench.

Yet that fact constitutes another reason the Sun people might shine brighter at Oracle, because they're bringing skill-sets likely to be in short supply.

OK, all of this is a set up to segue into a video and podcast I did with Lew Tucker, Sun's Chief Technology Officer for Cloud Computing. I taped the interview on March 18, the day Sun unveiled its Open Cloud Platform. The most interesting part of the discussion, for me, was when Lew talked about his days in the 1980s working for supercomputer pioneer Thinking Machines. Lew is also an alum of salesforce.com.

Guys like Lew speak to my thesis that Sun's deep technical bench is its greatest asset. The list of heavy hitters includes CTO (and former MIT professor) Greg Papadopoulos, Sun Microelectronics executive vice president Mike Splain, Sun Fellow and Java guru James Gosling, and others too numerous to mention.

Here's the video. (The podcast contains the same content; audio only. Click the tiny play button here to listen. or open the floating podcast player on the lower left.)

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Alex Wolfe is editor-in-chief of InformationWeek.com.

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