IBM ready to gobble up Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems may be Big Blue's next conquest. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the two companies have been in talks and there could be a deal as early as this week. If the companies reach an agreement, IBM is ready to pay $6.5 billion for this California company. The acquisition would boost IBM's hold on the Internet, software, and the finance and telecommunications markets.

If there is a deal, there would be plenty of cultural differences to overcome. Big Blue, an East Coast venue, is known for being conservative and buttoned up. Sun, with its top executive Jonathan Schwartz wearing a ponytail, is known as a laid-back company that produces innovations that don't always make money.

Stay tuned, because this will be a good one if it breaks.

For more on this possible takeover:
- check out this Wall Street Journal article

Related Articles:
Sun: Rock 16-core server chip on track for fall release
Senior Sun executive talks about criticism surrounding MySQL 5.1
IBM server bug could result in data loss
IBM will snag half of India's outsourcing work by 2010