sun

Oracle climbs up the food chain

A million gallons of ink and four gazillion pixels have been spilt detailing or pontificating on Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

My colleague Gordon Haff, for example, has nicely laid out Oracle's plans for Sun (as best as can be known this soon). So I'll be brief...

Oracle's interest in taking Sun's assets forward is at the very high end of expectations. In the almost-a-year since it became clear that Sun was shopping itself around, first to IBM then to Oracle, we've heard the direst of predictions. "Oracle only wants Sun to kill … Read more

Week in review: Tablet time for Apple

Apple let the world in on the "secret" device that everyone already knew about, but perhaps the only real surprise was its awkward name.

After months of rumors and speculation about a slate-like device, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to unveil to the iPad --a tablet computer that looks like a larger version of Apple's iPod Touch. It sports a 9.7-inch LCD touch-screen display, which makes use of the same multitouch technology found on the iPhone, Apple's Magic Mouse, and its notebook trackpads.

Twitter reaction to the announcement was generally positive. Some seemed … Read more

Oracle lays out plans for Sun

After announcing earlier Wednesday that it closed its $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle followed up with a previously scheduled Webcast during which executives laid out the rationale for the acquisition and detailed plans for much of Sun's product portfolio.

When the acquisition was first announced, it seemed an odd match to many. Oracle was a software company, and Sun was widely thought of as a hardware company--though it was really more than that. But there was always another aspect to this, if you thought more broadly about where the computer industry was headed.

The big boys were all aligning through either acquisition or partnership into the sort of vertically integrated computer companies that were once familiar but were largely displaced by processor, operating system, server, storage, and networking specialists.

At the time of Oracle's announcement that it was acquiring Sun, we had already seen moves like Hewlett-Packard's purchase of EDS and the ramp-up of its ProCurve networking business. The subsequent months have only highlighted this trend, with the increasingly close partnership between Cisco Systems, EMC, and EMC's VMware subsidiary. And HP's acquisition of 3Com and partnership announcement with Microsoft. IBM never abandoned a considerable vertical bent.

With Sun and Oracle's announcement of a database appliance last fall, there could no longer be any doubt that delivering factory-integrated stacks from server to storage to software was a big part of this acquisition. The only surprise today was the strength of the all-Oracle stack message.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, among others, made it clear that the IBM of the 1960s was the company's integration model. There were a few references to selling "best-of-breed components" to customers who wanted to purchase that way. But promoting the benefits of buying a complete hardware and software stack designed to work together was one of the other overriding themes of the day. I'm not sure that I heard "heterogeneous"--one of the terms that computer companies like to use, even when they don't really mean it--uttered once during the five-hour broadcast.

The other big theme could be summed up as something along the lines of: Sun had great innovation but executed really poorly. For example, Oracle President Charles Phillips said "Sun had created a very complex supply chain" and that Oracle was going to "implement a more attractive systems support plan. Some [support was] done by Sun, some by others, some by no one." Ellison was, if anything, more blunt: "We just need to do a better job of taking engineering output and delivering to customers."

There was much throughout the day on that theme, and it's hard to argue with the basic contention.… Read more

Oracle's Sun strategy: What to expect

Oracle on Wednesday will unveil its grand vision for Sun Microsystems in a five-hour powwow with analysts.

With the acquisition complete, the real work begins. It's clear Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will focus on high-margin systems and integrated appliances like the Exadata machine.

The hardware business is likely to be reshuffled, according to Deutsche Bank analysts. For instance, Oracle may not stick around in the volume server business--Sun Fire, Sun Blade 6000 Series--and it's unclear whether midrange servers--Sun Fire, M-Series 4000, 5000--make sense.

But Oracle's event is likely to be more than just a hardware gab fest. … Read more

Oracle buys Sun, becomes hardware company

Oracle announced Wednesday it completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in a deal valued at more than $7 billion, a move that transforms the database and business-software giant into a hardware company as well.

Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle has acquired several large companies in its drive to out-consolidate rivals in the business computing technology market, sometimes launching hostile takeovers and sometimes prevailing over regulatory objections. This time, the difficulty was persuading European antitrust regulators who were concerned about the fate under Oracle of the open-source MySQL database software business that was part of Sun.

But that barrier fell as … Read more

Sun CEO set to resign

If Sun CEO Jon Schwartz's recent all-hands memo to employees had all the sentimentality of a farewell letter, it's likely because he's preparing to leave the company. Sources close to Sun tell me Schwartz will soon resign as CEO, leaving the company in the hands of new owner Oracle and its very profit-minded leadership. An announcement date hasn't yet been set.

When he was appointed CEO in April 2006, Schwartz was charged with restoring Sun to its glory days. Sadly, he was unable to do it. And while he came up with some inventive strategies--buying MySQL, … Read more

Sun CEO's internal memo: Beat IBM

Oracle received unconditional regulatory approval this week from the European Commission for its acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Below is the all-hands memo Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz sent to employees following the announcement on Thursday. Pay particular attention to the first letter of the first 7 paragraphs.

Believe it or not, it's been more than nine months since Oracle first announced their intent to acquire Sun in April, 2009. And the 'interim' period has been tough on everyone--on our employees, and our partners and customers. Thankfully, that interim period is coming to an end, with regulatory approval from the European … Read more

Oracle-Sun deal gets EU approval, finally

The European Commission has officially approved the Oracle-Sun merger, paving the way for Oracle to take over Sun Microsystems in a deal valued at more than $7 billion.

"I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalize important assets and create new and innovative products," said Neelie Kroes, the European antitrust commissioner, in a statement Thursday.

The approval by the EC, which faced a late-January deadline, comes after months of limbo during which the Commission expressed skepticism about the antitrust aspects … Read more

EU poised to approve Oracle-Sun deal

The European Commission's approval of Oracle's $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun is imminent. Though EU regulators have until late January to make their decision, sources close to both companies tell me they expect approval this week--perhaps even as early as Wednesday or Thursday. They caution, however, that the EC is nothing if not mercurial; there's always a chance it could fail to reach a quorum, in which case approval will fall closer to the review deadline of January 27.

Either way, the deal is likely to officially close in early February. And when it does, Oracle … Read more