Oracle acquired Sun in 2010. Sun Microsystems is a diversified IT company that makes everything from hardware such as semiconductor chips to software. The company has a presence in several different markets which means that they have to compete with a large number of competitors amongst these different markets. Many of these competitors are specialized in their respective fields. In order to determine the best strategy for the company, we first need to understand and analyze its internal and external environments. This will be achieved through a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis.

Strengths:

- Presence in both hardware & software markets: Few companies have a well developed hardware and software portfolio like
Some examples of these are the Internet's most valuable brands are all free – Google, Skype, Yahoo!, Facebook, MySpace, etc (Sam Dean). The biggest and best example of this is Google, which takes no money at all from users in its search engine or for using its mail service. However, the tremendous exposure that Google provides makes it an excellent marketing opportunity for advertisers and this is where their revenue is generated.

The top management of the company believes that the future of their software will be open source. Open source is not only free, but keeps on evolving over time and therefore it can never be outdated. Sun Microsystems is focusing on developing and distribution for open source software to run on its hardware. The company is also investing in cloud computing, which is also going to be open source. The idea is that the popularity of its software, will act like free marketing for the company’s hardware products, which will also see an increase in sale through brand recognition and loyalty.

This is a much different direction that is being taken by them quite than their competitors who do not believe that open source can be profitable. While the strategy adopted by Sun can provide great benefits, it is not without risks. After all, Linux, the first major open source software has been around for many years, but has not been able to come anywhere near the sales or popularity of Microsoft. Sun must realize that is just not good