AKIBIA'S PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
Friday, March 27, 2009
A Potential Sun Acquisition - Impact on Service
Posts like Bill Snyder's Tech Bottom Line on IBM's potential acquisition of Sun, make a valid point: In the long run, this may be good for IT innovation, and it may give new life to the R&D department at Sun, allowing them to produce more of the quality technology we expect from Sun. But that's a topic for others to debate, and they are!
On this blog, we focus on the practical use of technology, and an acquisition of Sun by ANYONE could very well be a real-life hassle for the data centers who rely on Sun for support of their existing servers. As Sun and its employees weigh the options of a merger or acquisition, it is likely that service and support areas will suffer.
As Snyder notes, acquisitions nearly always results in lay offs and consolidation. What happens when the regular support team your company is accustomed to leaves? Upheaval among service engineers can leave a lot of companies in the lurch—SLAs are missed and junior level engineers fill in.
Once the two companies do consolidate, new questions arise. Who is supporting the systems then? IBM or Sun engineers? Plus, the legacy Sun customer becomes an even smaller fish, in an even bigger pond.
Many companies we've spoken to think this is a good idea from a technology perspective. But for those of you who rely on Sun for support of the mission critical systems in your data center today, is an acquisition a concern for you?
