Sun shareholders approve Oracle merger

Sun Microsystems announced Thursday that the stockholders at its special meeting voted in favor of the merger agreement with Oracle.

Investors holding approximately 62 percent of all shares of Sun common stock voted yes to the deal under which Oracle will acquire Sun for $9.50 a share in cash, a total of $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt.

The acquisition still faces antitrust scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice over one sticking point on Java licensing. But Oracle is confident the merger will be completed by the end of the summer.

The global downturn has been hard on Sun, which is expecting lower sales and a net loss for its fiscal fourth quarter.

Oracle announced its intent to buy Sun on April 20. The announcement followed a lengthy series of talks and meetings between Sun and other suitors looking to pick up the company.

[myles taylor]

I'm kind of sad about this. Change can be good but it can also be bad. I hope that it's good but I don't really know enough about Oracle to be able to say. I guess it's a wait and see kind of thing.

[gbmodern]

Hmmmm... I kind of liked Sun. I thought it would be the other way around, with Sun buying Oracle. Will we be seeing Oracle Java in the future then?

[Renegade Knight]

Hopefully it doesn't pass anti trust. I've never seen a merger that did the public any good. I thought maybe Sirus XM would be an exception. Not so far.

[monkeyfun14]

Atleast its better then them just dying..

[Renegade Knight]

@monkeyfun14

The thing is, if Sun was a sinking ship, it would make more sence for Oracle to buy them in bankrupsy. Instead Oracle see's Sun as a having a lot of value. Same reason I bought the stock.

I make money on this deal. Just not as much as when Sun would have turned it around.

As for oracle's prospects. I'm not going to reinvest my profit in their stock. My company tossed them out for being such an expensive PITA to work with. That doesn't mean they will fail, but it's a sign of the problems Oracle faces going forward.

[JavaMan09]

Too bad. I have lots of time invested in learning Java technologies. I really ORACLE keeps going with the Java improvements that Sun has been making. Also, I don't know why, but I just like Sun. I guess that is some American thing to feel compassion for underdogs.

[apostasy]

I'm a big fan of Sun too, probably because I like Java so much. I hoping that Oracle and Sun will accomplish some great things.

[joetesta70]

What do all these companies have in common:

Sun
Borland
Novell
Netscape
AOL
DEC
Osborne...

[naterandrews]

Wonder how this will affect the Microsoft/Sun partnership..

[ATathe]

The deal makes enough business sense for Oracle. As to how Java moves forward from here would be interesting. But one thing which can't be denied is that the deal will create a lot of waves in the IT world- Akshay Tathe