Breaking: IBM pulls bid for Sun

Not sure if someone else is offering more. Sun apparently said they didn’t want to be negotiating exclusively with IBM, so IBM yanked the bid. I expect Sun’s shares (NASDAQ: JAVA) to plummet in the morning, unless they announce their new suitor. Shades of Yahoo+Microsoft. Someone on the Yahoo side did a really bad thing by their shareholders. And got fired for it. [update] More at WSJ. Sun’s board rejected the offer as too low. At $9.50/share, it was a premium over the real value of the company according to the market. Too low? Yeah, this is Yahoo+Microsoft redux. The alternative scenario appears to be that IBM can pick up relevant pieces at a fire-sale later on. Sun won’t vanish like SGI did, but it will likely take a really long time to finish dissolving. The long tail as it were. I empathize with Sun shareholders right now. Tomorrow is going to be rough.