Oracle Steps in and Picks Up Sun

Database company talks strategic value of the buy; predicts "substantially higher margins" from troubled Sun.

By  Alex Goldman | Apr 20, 2009
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Oracle and Sun Microsystems are poised to tie the knot after Oracle this morning said it's making a $9.50 per share offer in cash for the embattled server and Java player.

The total price of the deal will be approximately $7.4 billion, but since Sun brings $1.8 billion of net cash to the deal, the net cost to Oracle could be as low as $5.6 billion.

The news comes almost exactly a month after IBM reportedly made its own offer for Sun, in a deal from which Sun ultimately walked away. The Wall Journal reported that Sun officials felt that IBM's offer of $9.40 per share had been too low.

On a conference call announcing the deal this morning, Oracle president Safra Catz was bullish on the deal, saying that it would provide a greater per-share contribution than Oracle's acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined.

Read more on Oracle's plans at InternetNews.com.

Goldman was a technical writer at ABE Corporation in Tokyo, Japan, preparing manuals for cellular phones and other equipment during the transition from analog to digital technologies. He returned to the U.S. and edited for Simon & Schuster before working at ISP-Planet and ISPCON from 2000 to 2009.

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