IBM to buy Sun?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that allegedly IBM are stumping up $6.5 billion to buy Sun.

The Wall Street Journal, quoting “people familiar with the matter,” reported Wednesday that International Business Machines was in talks to buy Sun for at least $6.5 billion in cash, a premium of more than 100 percent over the company’s closing share price Tuesday. Officials of Sun and IBM could not immediately be reached for comment.

This would be a seismic shift in the IT landscape, potentially bigger than Compaq’s take over by HP – consider all the large installations and government contracts that this would effect.

I have very mixed feelings about this, and will avoid commenting until we get some more details. If nothing else, it’s provided a nice boost to Sun’s stock.