Sun Microsystems’ Future – HHS Uses many of their technologies

It was just published that a buyout from IBM is not looking likely, so what will happen to Sun? If the IBM offer dries up, who’s left, Oracle or Microsoft, anyone else? Hopefully someone will buy before a bail out issue would appear I hope. We all use Java in our browsers as well, which many of us remember from years ago going from Windows Virtual Java to the real Java. That represents only one portion of their business.

“Chicago HIMSS, April 6, 2009 Open source software from Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) is enabling the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to build a secure, open technology platform to connect federal government agencies and health information exchanges in a "network of networks"--the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN)--built over the Internet.”

Just as a novice speaking here it appears that their technology is too interwoven for any of it to go by the wayside by all means. One of the products I like is Virtual Box which was purchased by Sun a couple years ago, and I use it for all my virtual desktops so I can switch to Ubuntu or another operating system quickly and have been happy with how it performs. BD

The murk surrounding Sun Microsystems (NSDQ: JAVA) and its stalled acquisition talks with IBM (NYSE: IBM) isn't stopping the federal government from awarding key contracts to the troubled tech vendor.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is relying on Sun for a number of critical open source technologies as it builds out a so-called "network of networks" designed to electronically connect key players in the nation's health care system and help fulfill a major campaign promise.

On Monday, Sun disclosed that HHS is using a range of Sun open source technologies to build out the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). Among them: Sun's GlassFish application platform, its Java Composite Application Suite SOA platform, and the Sun Java Identity Management Suite.

Yet the company retains key widely used assets, including the Solaris operating system, the open source MySQL database -- which boasts more than 11 million installations -- and the Java programming language.