Oracle Buys Sun. Now does Larry buy into the cloud?

It’s the biggest news of the day, at least in the world of tech, if not business. Oracle has agreed to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion. You can read the press release from Sun to get the official details.

It is definitely an aggressive move by Oracle and one that sees them grab the crown jewels of Java, MySQL, and Solaris. It gives them many ways to play the game, with core assets to entice big enterprise customers, as well as, new ways to approach small and medium-sized businesses.

Although, Larry Ellison has scoffed at the definition of cloud computing, that’s not the same as dismissing the concept itself. If anything, he’s simply said, “Hey, wait, haven’t we been doing this all along?”

Well, not quite. But, clearly he gets that the technology and the thinking is here today. It’s a matter of evolving it a bit further, packaging it up right, and wrapping it in some standards. And, then, keeping it open. None of which will be easy. Yet, all of which is something the industry is moving towards and that customers, developers, and vendors appear to be quite interested in exploring and adopting.

Therefore, the move by Oracle may also be seen as a confirmation that cloud computing is the next legitimate wave of computing. By acquiring the core assets of Sun, it can now think about packaging the pieces and offering them as a true utility. As Larry said: “”Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves.”

What better way to offer that integrated systems than via the cloud?

Finally, Oracle has the resources to invest in such things, while they continue to print money from their database franchise. It’s a shrewd, timely move, from one of the best operators in the game. With this move, Larry Ellison has made it clear that he intends to lead the next wave of computing by fighting it out with all challengers. It looks like the oracle has spoken.