IBM Bid for Sun: Jonathan Schwartz's Blog
IBM is reportedly in talks to buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion or more. We'll leave it to others to comment whether any proposed deal makes sense or makes no sense.
In any event, it's interesting to observe how masterfully Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz used his corporate blog in the weeks ahead of this breaking news, in his words, "to set out a clear direction of where Sun's headed."
In a series of posts that coincide with news of a possible acquisition by IBM, Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz combined the use of personal video embedded into his blog with transcripts of his detailed description of Sun's strategic imperatives:
1. Technology Adoption
2. Commercial Innovation
3. Efficiently Connecting 1. and 2.
Jonathan Schwartz sets up the series of three substantive posts with these words:
As you know, simplicity takes a lot of engineering, so it's easy to say "just three things," but I'm not in any way suggesting these tasks are easily accomplished. But our intent is to create, promote, and commercialize the highest quality network innovations. Innovations that captivate developers, and deployers.
To understand Sun, you have to understand both, you have to see what drives our financial performance, as well as read our financial statements. Absent both perspectives, you'll miss the bigger picture, the bigger threat, or the bigger opportunity.
Simply brilliant corporate communications.
Might the real "plum" in this acquisition be Jonathan's Blog?
Speculation is rife that IBM is closing in on a $6.5bn deal to acquire Jonathan Schwartz’s blog. If it happens it will become the largest acquisition in the blogosphere to date, and lend weight to the argument that Sun Microsystems’ CEO was right to spend so much of his time blogging...
