Sun Microsystems’s last quarterly report as an independent company was about as miserable as earnings reports get. No surprise, then, that the company didn’t bother to issue a press release or hold a conference call with analysts to discuss them.
The Justice Department’s extended antitrust review of Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun apparently turned up few issues of concern. Oracle said this afternoon that regulators have approved the $7.4 billion deal with no restrictions.
September third. That’s the day the European Commission will determine whether or not to clear Oracle’s planned $5.6 billion merger with Sun. And though there would seem, on the face of things, to be no serious antitrust objections to the deal, one never knows. Questionnaires distributed by the EC suggest the agency is particularly interested in the merger’s potential impact on MySQL.
The shareholders of Sun Microsystems have given the thumbs-up to the company’s merger agreement with Oracle. At a special meeting Thursday, a 62 percent majority of Sun’s common stock owners–not including CEO Jonathan Schwartz and board chairman and co-founder Scott McNealy, who, oddly, did not attend–approved the deal.
Looks like Sun’s last quarterly report as an independent company will be among the company’s ugliest. Sun, which is to be acquired by Oracle in a $7.4 billion deal, said Tuesday morning that its fiscal fourth-quarter loss will be far steeper than the one Wall Street has been expecting.
Oracle was “almost” able to resolve the Justice Department’s concerns over its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Almost, but not quite. The 30-day review period for the $7.4 billion deal was set to expire midnight Friday. But instead of approving it, the DOJ extended its examination, issuing a second request for more information.
To hear tell from Sun executives, the company’s impending acquisition by Oracle will be of great benefit to Sun, its technology and its customers. “Is this Oracle thing a good thing for Java?” Sun chairman Scott McNealy asked last week at the company’s JavaOne conference. “And is it a…good thing for the community, and all the rest of it?…It’s absolutely a good thing.” Thing is, this wasn’t always Sun’s opinion. In fact, the company’s touting of the benefits of the Oracle acquisition is, dare I say, a tad ironic given its preacquisition opinion of Oracle’s prices.
Java has a new evangelist: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
In his first public comments since announcing Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems in April, Ellison told attendees of Sun’s annual JavaOne conference that he plans to continue promoting it.
Red Hat is destined to be acquired, most likely by IBM–according to Jefferies analyst Katherine Egbert, anyway. Noting that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems is bad news for Red Hat, Egbert says the open-source outfit is going to need a partner sooner or later and that IBM may well volunteer for the position.
A couple bombshells in Sun Microsystems’s latest 10-Q filing. Seems the company believes it may have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans bribery of foreign government officials. Oh, and some of its shareholders are suing to block its acquisition by Oracle.
Larry Ellison’s got some news for skeptics predicting Oracle will dump the Sun Microsystems hardware business when its $7.4 billion acquisition of the company closes: It’s not gonna happen. In an interview with Reuters subsequently filed with the SEC, the Oracle CEO said he plans to maintain that part of Sun’s business.
Looks like IBM found another use for some of the $6.5 billion it had considered using to acquire Sun. This morning the company said it is acquiring Exeros, a data relationship discovery company that it plans to roll into into its business analytics unit.
The market today continues to have its say on Sun’s rejection of IBM’s acquisition offer. The consensus: IBM threw Sun a rope and the company used it to make a noose. Shares of Sun–which fell nearly 27 percent Monday following the collapse this weekend of merger talks with IBM–are slipping again today on fears that the company has bollixed up what may have been its only chance at salvation.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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