IBM and Sun merger?

Even though IBM buying Sun for $6.5 Billion USD is rumor I can only hope it is true. It would be a HUGE boon to both Unix and Linux seeing that each of these companies push both platforms. IBM with AIX and Sun with Solaris all under one roof as well as further penetration of Linux thanks to IBM. The other beautiful thing is IBM's service now couple with Sun's client base. Then the eventual merging of technologies from both hopefully standardizing on the Power platform. Think about it for a moment if you will. Big Iron from IBM able to run AIX and Linux and Sun able to run Solaris and Linux with the underpinnings of both running on Power6 or future Power processors.

Then there is the whole market share thing. With IBM and Sun under one roof that would account for approx 2/3 of the entire Unix/Linux market in one house, the only competitor being HP. HP would be in a pickle simply because now IBM/Sun will be able to get new products to market faster and there would be a standardization across platforms for most of the popular applications running on IBM/Sun hardware. In any case HP getting knocked out of the big leagues, read UNIX, is no big deal as all they really offer is PA-RISC and the Itanium both of which are nothing special in comparison to the Power line and Sun's Niagara. Then there is HP's offering of in house operating systems HP/UX, Linux and OpenVMS with Linux being the only real contender in the *Nix space because HP/UX just plain sucks. OpenVMS on the other hand is still one of the most stable operating systems out so they would still have that to offer. It would also slow down or possibly reverse Microsoft's penetration into this space with their Enterprise licensed server products.

Here's hoping that this happens as I would love to see *Nix make more news.

EDIT: Well it seems like this is damned near a done deal. Sources from within both companies are expecting it to be done by the end of the week!