What makes this painful was that we just launched their last “new” Web site less than 9 month’s ago. I thought I would share with you why this scenario occurred and the mistakes I made assuming certain things about a big Web hosting company.

When my friend Ron, who owns Toy Anxiety, asked me to move his Web site from Capital Internet to a new hosting company, we had some simple criteria to follow. The current site at that time, was custom written in Java, but could only be maintained by the person who wrote the code. The site, since it was customized, did almost everything Ron wanted. The developer was suppose to add new enhancements to get the site closer to what Ron needed.

The person who wrote the code had been promoted several times at their regular job and it was getting more difficult for him to work on the Web site. What Ron now wanted was a site that was simple for them to maintain (they have low technical skills) and with a large enough Web hosting company that they could always call technical support in case it became difficult for me to help them too.

Since GoDaddy was a fairly large Web hosting company and was local to Phoenix (they are in Scottsdale), we decided to go with them. I made some assumptions, most of them bad, that they would be able to handle our needs since they were a large company, advertised a lot about the advantages and benefits of their company, and from conversations from other folks I knew who hosted their Web sites there, was simple to build and had very good technical support.

So, we started building the Web site using their shopping cart feature. This was a fairly straightforward task and we were pleased with how the site was taking shape. We were able to run SQL against the original site’s MySQL database to create .CSV files that we could load into the GoDaddy Excel templates for bulk loading the products into the new GoDaddy product database.

Next Post: The rush to launch (Part II)

The deal – which Oracle valued at $7.4 billion, including Sun’s cash and debt – trumped Intermation Business Machines Corp.’s (IBM) lackluster pursuit of Sun and provides Oracle will one of the most significant software products ever – Java!.

The key benefit for Oracle will be its acquisition of Sun’s line of servers, shifting Oracle from a provider of business software into a seller of full data center systems, in the vein of IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ).

“Oracle is now able to make all of the pieces of the technology stack,” said Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison. “Completely integrated computer systems hardware and software running both Oracle and Solaris should be even more popular and very profitable.”

For the every acquiring Oracle, the deal gives it Java, the basis for its fastest-growing business, Fusion Middleware. Ellison was noted as saying that Oracle’s middleware business is on track to become as large as its database software business.

Meanwhile, IBM – which was unable to complete a deal with Sun in recent weeks – is left to wonder what might have been.

Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, said Oracle makes a better acquirer because it already uses Sun’s technologies in some principle offerings. And while IBM has a large software portfolio, Kay said, Oracle is “more purely” a software company like Sun.

IBM, however, could have integrated Sun’s hardware into its lineup more easily, Kay said, adding that big cuts are likely ahead for Sun’s selling, general and administrative cost line, “which looks pretty heavy at 28.5% of revenue.”
Sun’s board, which may have stymied the IBM offer, unanimously approved the Oracle deal, expected to close this summer. The deal represents the likely end for Sun, one of Silicon Valley’s more iconic companies, which had struggled for much of this decade to remain relevant.

Sun’s talks with IBM unraveled earlier this month, reportedly on divisions within Sun’s board and concerns raised during IBM’s due diligence. The breakdown raised new questions about Sun’s prospects and its chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, who has been under pressure to come up with an alternative for the struggling company.
Schwartz’s status was described by some as precarious if he couldn’t complete a sale of Sun. Schwartz, who took over as CEO in 2006, has made some progress in shifting Sun’s focus toward software, but the company still gets a big chunk of its revenue from the line of servers that has faced slowing sales recently.

The Silicon Valley icon has seen slumping sales of its servers and posted losses in three of its last four quarters. Sun has a group of very loyal customers for its high-end server systems that run on its Sparc chips, but the company was late in providing lower-end servers using chips from Intel Corp. (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) The tardiness proved costly, resulting in market-share gains for competitors.

Oracle expects the acquisition to add $1.5 billion to operating profit in the first year and more than $2 billion in the second year. President Safra Catz said that would make the Sun deal more profitable in per-share contribution in the first year than its recent acquisitions of PeopleSoft, Siebel and BEA combined.

Oracle which has a history of acquisitions, having made more than 260 deals valued at over $50.5 billion since July 1992, according to FactSet Research. This is Oracle’s largest deal since acquiring BEA Systems for $8 billion a year ago.

Still, Oracle’s entry into the hardware business could have an adverse impact on its operating margins, said Standard & Poor’s analyst Zaineb Bokhari in downgrading the company’s shares to hold from buy.

“We think that the company can afford the transaction,” Bokhari said, “but are concerned by operational challenges.”
Oracle’s Fusion Middleware business is based on Sun’s Java language and software, and Oracle said it could now ensure continued investment in the technology. It will also acquire the Solaris operating system, the leading platform for its database business, which is its largest. 

I can’t wait to see how Larry Ellison and James Gosling (considered the Father of Java) discuss and plan the future directions for Java. I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that meeting.

So what do you think? Did IBM let the big one slip away.

We do take technology too much for granted. The converse of that is we depend too much on technology too. I begrudged the fact that my kids used calculators to validate their math problems in the 5th and 6th grade. I think it is important for us to understand and appreciate the basics and foundations of how things work instead of relying on technology so much. I don’t mean to bite the hand that feeds me, but I remember when we played cops and robbers as kids and hid in our neighbor’s bushes with toy pistols and chased each other though the bushes around the entire street block. Today, if I find a kid with any type of gun in my bushes, I call 911.

What do you think? Do we take technology too much for granted?

So here it is!

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Michael