Manic Thursday: M&A Extravaganza

Sun said it was buying StorageTek for $4.1 billion big ones. Thin-client power Citrix said it was snapping up "application networking" vendor NetScaler. And, to top it all off, mid-market ERP player Lawson Software, often the subject of buyout rumors itself, said it is buying Intentia International, a Swedish ERP player. And it wasn't even 9 a.m.

On the Citrix front, it was explained that "application networking" requires another layer of software under the presentation layer to speed app performance, especially in e-commerce type situations.

As for Sun/StorageTek, one Wall Street Watcher, when told about Sun buying the SAN power asked simply: "Why?"

Upon reflection, he added, "Well Sun still has tons of cash and I guess Digital Equipment was already taken." Ba-doom-boom.

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COMMUNICATOR DEBUTS

Microsoft said Wednesday that its not-so-cleverly named Communicator IM client was RTMed(released to manufacture). Information on the preview can be had here.

IBM: REMAIN CALM!

For any IBM/Lotus types who may have flipped their wigs seeing yesterday's Unblog headline, keep your rugs on: Microsoft's WinOE is now going under the Windows Workflow Services nomenclature. Not Windows Workplace Services. IBMers might care because the company has staked a claim on Workplace for its next-gen messaging and collab wares.

For reasons unknown to mere mortals, Interwoven and/or Oracle has not allowed a fix to this headline. Yet. Hopefully that will be addressed someday soon. But in the meantime, while Microsoft may have borrowed the Communicator moniker from Netscape, it has not appropriated "Workplace."