The VAR Guy

Microsoft has found a secret weapon in its battle against open source. The software giant will soon give college students free access to its software development tools. Assuming there are no strings attached, it’s a smart move by Microsoft. But it’s hardly unique.

Yes, Sun is acquiring MySQL for $1 billion. But Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz isn’t done modernizing his company. Not by a long shot. The VAR Guy isn’t ready to predict which company Sun will acquire next, but he has noticed Schwartz getting pretty darn cozy with two fast-growing open source businesses.

Sun Microsystems finally matters again. The company is buying MySQL, the open source database leader, for $1 billion. That’s huge news for Sun, systems integrators and the open source community. But this new opportunity for Sun also includes five key challenges, according to The VAR Guy. Here’s a look at those challenges, and how Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (pictured) will need to address them.

At first glance, The VAR Guy was underwhelmed by Dell’s decision to offer Sun Solaris on selected servers. But after an hour of digesting the news — and his lunch — The VAR Guy thinks this deal is a rare triple play for Dell, Sun and customers.