(October 24, 2007)- Former JBoss maestro Marc Fleury has been considering the contenders in any race to counter-bid for BEA in the face of Oracle's $6.6BN bid. His conclusion: Most of the big players would be better off buying Red Hat. "Red Hat is a better, and potentially cheaper, option for many of the other players," he writes.

Fluery's blogged remarks emerged in the context of a discussion about the consolidation of the software vendor market.



"I do not see IBM going after BEA," Fleury opined. His reasoning? "A bidding war against Oracle is a money losing proposition although merging the two product lines would insure that IBM remains the leader."

Then comes Fleury's alternative suggestion: that someone should buy Red Hat.

"There is a cheaper alternative which delivers more bang: buy Red Hat. With JBoss replacing the dead and embarassing Geronimo efforts, IBM could really consolidate the middleware market. Also with the Linux lines coming under repetitive FUD threats by Microsoft on the patent front, you have a "two birds with one stone" effect. While BEAS delivers only middleware, RedHat delivers OS and MW. This would effectively protect the massive investment IBM has made in Linux and open source. Forget buying BEA, buy Red Hat."


Fleury dances for viewers of SYS-CON.TV (2006). Watch video here

Fleury, an one-time Sun employee, then considers Sun:

"As much as I like Sun, I do not see them as having the balance sheet needed to play in this league nor the strategic inclination to do so. I could be entirely wrong. For Sun to buy BEA also would clash with its stated OSS direction. For that kind of money, again Red Hat is a more natural fit with both an OS and MW. ... Sun has the OS credibility with Solaris to hijack enterprise Linux leaving IBM with the unpalatable options of rolling its own distro, or buying Novell. It would also future-proof its OS lines."

And HP:

"I can see it, but I don't totally buy it. Maybe. HP plays in operations, by buying opsware and hardware and offering services they play to their core strength, which is monetizing operations. Development models are a different beast. They are more comfortable talking to operations guys than they are talking to developers. The memories of the botched Bluestone middleware acquisition probably are a still too recent there, as well as a cautionary tale on the downside of acquiring companies, without following through on integration and promised investment."