A story originally reported in the Wall Street Journal has suggested that Sun are in talks with IBM about a possible merger. Apparently Sun have already approached several potential buyers. The article provides little solid evidence for the speculation, however such possibilities do seem somewhat more likely due to economic uncertainty.
However the Java platform is still a major player in enterprise applications, and generally the choice for developers looking to work on the cutting edge of such software development. It remains to be seen how much truth there is in the rumours currently propagating across the internet.
The ramifications could be viewed as positive, as if Sun do need to be acquired to survive at least they can continue in some form and the Java platform will a future. However this could also be hugely problematic if IBM decide to impose their own ends on the development, availability or open source nature of Java itself.
You can view the original Wall Street Journal article here:
[...] Reuters have reported that the proposed merger between Sun and IBM has been broken off. This doesn’t necessarily preclude it from happening in the future and nothing has been said about any other parties that may be interested in acquisition of Sun. It does seem though that there is no merger on the horizon in the near future. [Original post] Rumoured Sun – IBM merger [...]