M&A market may be dead, but Sun's still buying

Apparently, someone forgot to tell Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz that the market for tech mergers and acquisitions is dead.

On Wednesday, Sun announced that it has acquired Q-layer, a cloud-computing management and automation company (see CNET's coverage here):

Imagine scaling up instantly to massive capacities to meet changing needs. Then imagine doing it on the Web, without having to invest in new infrastructure, train new personnel, or license new software. That's cloud computing, and Sun is making it a reality.

That's Sun's pitch, and it sounds promising. Cloud computing is a great fit with Sun's past and with its current technology portfolio, including open-source MySQL, the database leader on the Web. But is the market big enough yet to fill the holes in Sun's declining revenue?

That's the big question on Sun. I'm optimistic on its strategy, going forward, as I think its use of open source to drive add-on sales is smart and increasingly well-defined, and I also think, as I noted previously, that cloud computing is a good fit for Sun. But neither are likely to pay big dividends in the short term, which begs the question, can Wall Street be patient with Sun during this transition period?

[Travis5650]

If they can somehow spin off their hardware business, which under current climate conditions would be no small feat, I think the valuation conversation changes dramatically. It is the big white elephant in the room for Sun.

[MSSlayer]

Who really cares about the short term? Nobody important, just the greedy morons that had a hand in the current economic downfall.

[Matt Asay]

Well, yes and no. Sun has a finite amount of time to make more money than it loses, or its short term will be very short indeed. Because if Sun spends more than it makes in the short term, it will need to borrow for the short term, and probably for the long term. That, my friend, is what got us in this mess: borrowing/credit.