Did Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems increase HP's and Dell's interest in 3Par (company). Explain - Essay Example

Oracle’s acquisition of Sun and HP’s and Dell’s battle for 3Par Oracle is one of the biggest business software solutions providers in the world. It has a vast product line which includes server, database and enterprise application solutions. The company strives to provide its customers with complete solutions so that they are not dependent on third party to integrate the software solutions provided by Oracle to the hardware provided by another company. The company has reached this level by aggressive acquisitions.

The acquisition of Sun was aimed at placing Oracle in the storage, processor and server domains. This was thought to equip the company with complete tools to provide end to end solutions to the customers at minimum cost. This made it the direct competitor of companies like IBM (which was already its competitor before this acquisition), HP, CISCO and Dell. One of the major benefits of acquiring Sun has been the entry of its Java programming language as well as the Solaris operating system in the possession list of Oracle.

This is an important platform for much of Oracle’s work (Goodwin 2009). Oracle has also now entered the hardware segment of the industry. It can now package its software products with Sun’s hardware to help boost sales which is a direct competition to IBM and HP. Dell is also aiming to achieve such integrated solutions for its customers. Sun’s MySQL database has provided further strength to Oracle. This will help the company expand the number of users that utilize Oracle database products.

This is true especially from the point of view of entry into the small-to-midsize businesses where it had a significantly low presence (Schiff 2009). With the ownership of Sun’s StarOffice through this acquisition, Oracle can now even attack the laptop/desktop market which will be a direct threat to the MS office application of Microsoft (Schiff 2009). Thus, we can see that the company has positioned itself as a direct competitor to hardware providers like Dell and HP while greatly increasing its software segment penetration capability.

This definitely had an obvious impact on the two companies who had to compete with each other for the acquisition of 3Par. Though the bid was opened by Dell, it was HP who finally acquired the company. Analysts feel that both the companies were fighting for 3Par because of its expertise in the storage market. Storage technology is moving at a very fast pace towards virtualized storage. Cloud computing is the technology of the day and both companies wanted to be in the field at the right time.

These companies are leaders in the server business and cloud computing is one avenue which can provide differentiated solutions to the server clients. Cloud computing reduces the need for huge on-site data centers (Ansaldo 2010). Not only does it save costs on account of reduced IT staff requirement, but it also helps to provide greater production and cost efficiencies (Ansaldo 2010). Thus, this technology is very crucial for small businesses. This small business segment is what Oracle had also aimed for.

This shows that Dell’s and HP’s interest in 3Par was prompted by the acquisition of Sun by Oracle. As Oracle grew its penetration into hardware segment, it posed a future threat to the established players like Dell and HP and they needed to do something soon to create product differentiation. Acquisition of 3Par was the easiest and quickest way to position oneself for the future competition. References Ansaldo, M (2010) What the Dell/HP 3Par buyout really mean, viewed on February 9, 2011 http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/29/urnidgns852573c4006938800025778e-idUS326750526820100829 Goodwin, B (2009) Oracle’s acquisition of Sun makes strategic sense, viewed on February 9, 2011 http://www.

computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/04/24/235773/Oracle-acquisition-of-Sun-makes-strategic-sense.htm Schiff, M (2009) Analysis: Oracle/Sun acquisition strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, viewed on February 9, 2011 http://esj.com/articles/2009/05/01/swot-analysis-oracle-sun.aspx