ebizQ's Business Agility Watch

From a story that was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, IBM apparently is in talks to buy Sun for somewhere in the range of $6.5 billion.

Tony Baer's take is: "So what does IBM really have to gain from spending $6.5 billion? More share in UNIX servers? UNIX is not exactly a growing market these days." Read the rest of Tony's analysis right here.

Also, we currently have a Forum that is discussion this very question (whether or not it's happening, and the pros and the cons). You can read the Forum right here.

According to ZDNet: "The only party that would leak this information is Sun itself, and it smacks of desperation in trying to thwart an unwanted acquisition, or to positively impact another deal that Sun is weak in. If IBM wanted to buy Sun it would have done so years ago, at least on the merits of synergy and technology. If IBM wanted to buy Sun simply to trash the company, plunder the spoils and do it on the cheap -- the time for that was last fall."

According to Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey: "...Of course, none of that matter much to Sun holders if IBM buys the company at a premium. Bailey says he would question the benefits of such a deal to IBM. "While there would undoubtedly be significant cost savings in the hardware divisions of both companies post a potential acquisition, there is also substantial overlap in almost all product lines," he writes. "At the same time, this would increase IBM's exposure to transactional business, reversing an effort by IBM over the past decade to increase it recurring revenue streams."

So it doesn't look like a sure thing, but we'll certainly be keeping an eye on the whole deal, and we'll let you know what we know as soon as we know it!