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The Wall Street Journal this week broke the news that IBM is considering purchasing Sun Microsystems.

"Teams of International Business Machines Corp. lawyers are examining Sun Microsystems Inc.'s contracts and documents in a due-diligence process that could take a number of days, according to people familiar with takeover negotiations between the two companies," according to the WSJ's William M. Bulkeley. "These people said it isn't clear how many days will be needed for the lawyers to finish their work."

"Besides the server market, the deal would give IBM a bigger presence in open source," writes ITworld's Dan Blacharski. "Sun's Java programming language is enormously popular. The acquisition would put IBM squarely in the forefront of the open source business."

"One of the main reasons IBM would be willing to pay a premium for Sun is that Sun owns Java, and Java IP is worth billions in future revenue to IBM," agrees InformationWeek's Charles Babcock. "IBM's software lines, such as WebSphere and Rational, are heavily Java-based."

More here from CNET ... more here from Forbes ... more here from ZDNet ... more here from eWeek ... more here from Computerworld ... more here from Barron's ... more here from TheStreet ... and more here from the Economist.