Oracle to Buy Sun for $7.4 Billion as IBM Talks EndVery cool -- I will assume that they are going to keep developing Open Office. There is the old joke: "What is the difference between Larry Ellison and God?" "God doesn't think he is Larry Ellison" (rim-shot) Posted by DaveH at April 20, 2009 11:43 AM
Oracle Corp. agreed to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. for about $7.4 billion in cash, swooping in after the server maker�s talks to be acquired by International Business Machines Corp. failed.
Oracle will pay $9.50 a share, 42 percent more than Sun�s closing price on April 17. Oracle plans to make Sun a profitable part of its business and said the purchase will add $1.5 billion to operating earnings, excluding some items, in the first year.
The takeover moves Oracle, the world�s second-largest software maker, into the market for server and storage computers, pitting the company against IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison also gains Sun�s Java programming language and Solaris operating system, which work with its top-selling database program.
�They�re really going to zero in on just the most strategic part of Sun�s hardware business,� said Heather Bellini, an analyst at UBS AG in New York, with a �buy� rating for Oracle�s shares. �They�ll end up making the company much better run.�
As someone that cut his teeth on SunOS back when it was BSD based and king of the world... I saw this as sort of sad... It was sort of symbolic of the end of a giant to me.
Posted by: Spork at April 20, 2009 5:26 PM