Re: why don't the millions of stakeholder in Java et. al just buy Sun?

A variant of the idea would be for Sun's largest corporate customers to
buy a majority stake in the company.  They are the primary economic
beneficiaries of Sun's open source strategy, even if they don't fully
realize it, and they have the governance structures in place to manage
it.  Combine that with a new issue from Sun to raise operating capital,
purchased by the same investor pool as part of the deal, and it could work.

I've always wondered why the prime corporate beneficiaries of open
source do not support it better, leaving that job to the vendors whose
interests are different.  Keeping Sun independent from IBM would truly
help all the large corporate Sun Java sites out there, MySQL sites, etc.

Plus, it should prove to be a great economic investment.

Yes, this would also be nearly impossible to pull of in the real world,
but is probably more practical that a buyout by individuals.  Sun could
drive for this kind of deal as an alternative to IBM.  The executive
management would have a better chance of keeping their jobs, making it
attractive.

It's out-of-the-box thinking though, so who in Sun executive management
would even propose such crazy alternative?

Chuck


Wade Chandler wrote on 03/23/2009 09:04 AM:
> You'd first have to form an organization and then you'd have to figure
> out how you keep everyone happy and elect a board and I suppose have
> folks buy in with the same amount (exchange rate etc) as part of
> keeping folks happy and some not thinking they should be the head of
> the snake just because they put in more money even if they don't know
> as much about technology. That way everyone would be on equal ground.
> That said, I don't think someone could pull such a feat off. To at
> least go 8 billion you'd need at least 8 million people willing to put
> in 1 thousand dollars or some smaller number willing to put in a lot
> more.
>
> Either way, it would be a large under taking of folks willing to come
> together to make some kind of a holding company or non-profit, but
> then too you would have to have operating capital to pay developers
> and all kinds of other things, though a good amount of that could come
> from the things Sun was doing, but certainly, doing business as Sun
> has been doing business has produced a slide in the stocks for a long
> time now, so some things would have to change, and I'm not so sure it
> would be wise to leave it in the hands of those responsible for much
> of the slide; if they keep doing what they are doing, which is losing
> money and laying people off, even before the latest recession, then it
> wouldn't be such a good investment.
>
> In some areas some very real changes are needed, a lot of management
> over head seems to be there, producing waste, and instead of getting
> out some chaff they have laid off many real producers, the developers.
> Too, you'd have to find some good leadership, from some who have been
> making millions off the company who would be willing to work for
> nothing for a few years or new folks to work for very little in
> comparison for that time, unlike the current head folks, should have
> more than enough to do much more than just survive, who would be
> willing and able to take the lead, inspire workers, and save some good
> teams from being laid off so that money could be made from their
> output; possibly risky, but if they could out last the recession it
> would pay off for them.
>
> Anyways, that is just hypothetical. I don't think it could be pulled
> together. You are talking about one heck of an organizer who could
> pull something like that off, and it certainly wouldn't happen in this
> IBM time frame being talked about. All those other competitors are
> very much out of the league to even worry with such a venture. Should
> they be? Maybe not, but it isn't about that for the hundred million
> and up companies as most of them already have the game plan they want
> in place.
>
> Wade
>  
> ==================
> Wade Chandler, CCE
> Software Engineer and Developer
> Certified Forensic Computer Examiner
> NetBeans Dream Team Member and Contributor
>
> http://www.certified-computer-examiner.com
> http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/NetBeansDreamTeam
> http://www.netbeans.org
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* software visualization <[email protected]>
> *To:* [email protected]
> *Sent:* Monday, March 23, 2009 2:29:47 PM
> *Subject:* [nbdiscuss] why don't the millions of stakeholder in Java
> et. al just buy Sun?
>
> Why don't the millions of stakeholders in Java just form an
> organization and buy Sun?
>
> How would this work? Is the best way to just buy Sun stock? But that
> leaves Wall Streeters Southern Asset Management on their board and
> Kohlberg Kravis Robertson their board. That's not going to work.
>
> There are literally tens of millions of people, in the US in the EU
> and in India  who want Sun to just keep doing what they're doing they
> way they're doing it and believe that things will get better. To the
> majority, it's worth US 1k to keep Sun alive, so what's the real
> problem with starting an something here and accumulating capital to
> buy Sun then leave it in the hands of the current crowd? Is it just
> the logistics of it all? Something like that can't be put together
> that fast? Is that really true?