Is open source the stock flavor of the month?

In a bid to boost its stock price, Sun Microsystems Monday to JAVA.

The market’s reaction? That’s fine, kid, here’s a quarter. From the time of the on Thursday through its Tuesday peak shares gained about 25 cents. That may not sound like much, but with 3.66 billion shares outstanding it’s about $900 million.

John Ogg of 24/7 called the move . Blogging Stocks made sure to mention Sun’s $3 billion . TechIQ said they got with a mention on Jim Cramer’s . Will the company’s actual name ?

Lost amidst the hype of CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s is the inescapable fact that Wall Street, for now, thinks open source is cool. Why else would SugarCRM hint at an IPO after by the OSI definition?

I happen to be among those who consider Sun’s course change both correct and sincere. As Schwartz noted in his post, far more people are now touched by Open Office and Java than by Sun servers. Sun’s open source products, and the contributions others make to it, are having a serious market impact.

But skeptics, including , will continue to wonder how Sun spins this straw into gold. are fine, but show us the money. The possible means far more to the bottom line than all the free downloads in the world. (The picture, by the way, was downloaded from Schwartz’ blog.)

So, can Sun make it work, or will this move in the end taste like just another bad cup of coffee?

Will Sun’s open source gambit succeed?

• 
  yes
• 
  no