Oracle Buys Sun

bruunb writes "Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. 'We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,' said Oracle President Safra Catz."

Comments

What about MySQL?

[kaffiene]

Well well well. I can see this working well for Oracle - they use Java a great deal... and it should be good news for Sun's open source projects like Netbeans - which would, I think, be maintained under Oracle.

I guess it's a little sad to see Sun unable to continue by themselves, but the writing was on the wall and I think Oracle will keep all the Sun products working, but of course the big question is what does this mean for MySQL?

Re:What about MySQL?

[ByOhTek]

Oracle already has Linux (a re-branded RHEL) for it's *NIX platform.

My guess is they'll relegate either their Linux, or Solaris to the back (either way, I wouldn't be surprised if Solaris went completely open source, no non-open-source Solaris).

Since Oracle likes primarily using "their own thing", my guess is they'll move to Solaris, and their Linux distro will take a bow, since it's based off of someone elses work, that they've not yet acquired.

Re:What about MySQL?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is "netbeans"? Who uses this java nonsense anyway?

Re:What about MySQL?

[rackserverdeals]

Since Oracle likes primarily using "their own thing", my guess is they'll move to Solaris, and their Linux distro will take a bow, since it's based off of someone elses work, that they've not yet acquired.

Solaris used to be the primary development environment and when Oracle switched to Linux the developers seemed to miss DTrace.

In the past, Solaris was the best platform to deploy Oracle on. That may still be true today, even with all the support Oracle has put into Linux. Oracle has kept up with Solaris/Sparc but lagged releases for Solaris/x86. Hopefully that changes now.

As much as I like Linux, I still prefer Solaris, especially since Solaris 10.

Sun's hardware works best (faster doesn't mean better) with Solaris, so I can't see Oracle dropping Solaris. I agree that it wouldn't be surprising to see Oracle moving more towards Solaris.

Re:What about MySQL?

[TheRaven64]

I'd expect to see closer integration with their DB. ZFS has some very nice transactional facilities. Oracle on other platforms tends to use its own filesystem drivers, but on Solaris they could use a ZVOL for the underlying transactional model easily and benefit from the lower-level parts of ZFS while using their own code for the data layout. They already ship a Linux distribution for running the DB, but I wouldn't be surprised if they start shipping Solaris instead (they can then tie their code closely to the kernel without having to open source it).

The most interesting question is what will happen to the UltraSPARC line. On paper, Rock and the T2 look like they'd be a very good match for Oracle's workloads, but since Oracle's license prevents publishing benchmarks and I don't have the hardware and software to hand to test them, I can't tell how they do in the real world. While Sun hardware is relatively expensive, even a top spec T2 box is cheap compared to the software cost of a typical Oracle install and so I wouldn't be surprised if the T3 is tweaked even more heavily for Oracle workloads. Being able to sell a complete vertical solution, with their own CPU, OS, and DB system is probably quite appealing to Oracle.

Re:What about MySQL?

[MindKata]

"Since Oracle likes primarily using "their own thing""

I think this is one of the biggest potential down sides of this deal. Oracle seek to control their products through using "their own thing" ... This product lock in is part of their thinking and so part of their product lifespan planning process. Now that kind of thinking will be applied to everything Sun has given them.

Re:What about MySQL?

[BlackCreek]

I have many co-workers that use Eclipse everyday, but that never got hold of point of the joke in the name.

"Eclipse" is when the Sun is blocked/hidden/occulted by something else. It makes IBM's reasons for funding Eclipse dead obvious. Turn one of your competitor's product niche into a commodity.

Re:What about MySQL?

[Matt Perry]

What the fuck is "netbeans"?

They are the seeds of the internet. You plant some and sprinkle them with bits. Eventually they grow into a huge series of tubes. How do you think the internet was created? With lots and lots of netbeans.

Re:What about MySQL?

[extremescholar]

Microsoft SQL server

Re:What about MySQL?

[SQLGuru]

Sun doesn't accept contributions to Netbeans itself citing that their development pace is too fast

Last time I checked, open source just means that the source is available. There's no requirement that they accept external contributions. If you want to contribute, fork it and go from there.

Re:What about MySQL?

[MaggieL]

I have many co-workers that use Eclipse everyday, but that never got hold of point of the joke in the name.

The name isn't the only joke about Eclipse.

Re:What about MySQL?

[value_added]

In the long run, FOSS converges to one winner, challenged by many (much smaller) creatures. Try to build a new browser or new *nix kernel and see how many people you project gets. Try to compete with Apache. Try to build a new OpenOffice ...

So ... does that mean emacs or vi[m] won?

Re:What about MySQL?

[binarylarry]

No, it foretells the coming of the one true operating system / text editor:

VIMACS!

All hail!

Re:What about MySQL?

[McKing]

I concur with this assessment. We recently moved from a $300,000 SunFire 6900 (a system the size of a standard full-size 42U rack) with 12 dual core CPU's and 48 GB of RAM that drew massive amounts of power and cooling, to a $30,000 T2 blade with 64GB of RAM that runs cool and sips power. Our DBA's were amazed at the improvement. We need to upgrade the front end systems now to keep up with the increase in performance of the backend! We were able to trade in the 6900, and the savings on *support* for the 6900 offset the purchase price of 2 blade chassis, 10 blades and a SAN!

For our workload, the massive parallel architecture of the T2 really suits Oracle. For any type of multithreaded or multiprocessed throughput-based app (web serving, front-end app servers, LDAP server, database server), the T1 and T2 design is perfect.

Re:What about MySQL?

[Burkin]

Open Source means you can see, modify and redistribute changes you make to a program. Nowhere does Sun disallow you from doing any of those things with Netbeans hence it is Open Source by the OSI definition. Sure, it's a pain in the ass that one has to maintain a disparate bunch of patches if you want to do any modifying of Netbeans because Sun won't accept them but that doesn't change the fact that it is open source.

Re:What about MySQL?

[Dun Malg]

"Eclipse" is when the Sun is blocked/hidden/occulted

I think you mean occluded. "occulted" is when you wave a dead chicken at it at midnight.

Re:What about MySQL?

[amias]

actually thats how you get the perl support working

New Solaris bit-by-bit licensing terms

[imac.usr]

1s - free
0s - $10 per 0, minimum 100,000 0s

Re:New Solaris bit-by-bit licensing terms

[MobyDisk]

Just give me the 1s, and tell me where they go. I'll fill in the 0s myself. :-)

I'm quite sure that IBM hates itself now

[egghat]

Oracle+Sun has the power to seriously harm IBM. IBMs big plus was the combination of good hardware + OS + DB + consultants.

Oracle + Sun can now deliver exactly the same.

bye egghat

Wow

[EmagGeek]

Sun = Poorly run company with great products
Oracle = Masterfully run company with shitty products

I wonder how that DNA is going to come together...

The internal announcement

[JerkBoB]

For anyone with morbid curiosity:

From: Jonathan I. Schwartz
To: allsun@sun.com
Subject: Today's Sun/Oracle Announcement
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:34:16 -0700 (07:34 EDT)

Today's Sun/Oracle Announcement

This is one of the toughest emails I've ever had to write.

It's also one of the most hopeful about Sun's future in the industry.

For 27 years, Sun has stood for courage, innovation, a willingness to blaze trails, to envision and engineer the future. No matter our ups and downs, we've remained committed to those ideals, and to the R&D that's allowed us to differentiate. We've committed to decade long pursuits, from the evolution of one of the world's most powerful datacenter operating systems, to one of the world's most advanced multi-core microelectronics. We've never walked away from the wholesale reinvention of business models, the redefinition of technology boundaries or the pursuit of new routes to market.

Because of the unparalleled talent at Sun, we've also fueled entire industries with our people and technologies, and fostered extraordinary companies and market successes. Our products and services have driven the discovery of new drugs, transformed social media, and created a better understanding of the world and marketplace around us. All, while we've undergone a near constant transformation in the face of a rapidly changing marketplace and global economy. We've never walked away from a challenge - or an opportunity.

So today we take another step forward in our journey, but along a different path - by announcing that this weekend, our board of directors and I approved the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by the Oracle Corporation for $9.50/share in cash. All members of the board present at the meeting to review the transaction voted for it with enthusiasm, and the transaction stands to utterly transform the marketplace - bringing together two companies with a long history of working together to create a newly unified vision of the future.

Oracle's interest in Sun is very clear - they aspire to help customers simplify the development, deployment and operation of high value business systems, from applications all the way to datacenters. By acquiring Sun, Oracle will be well positioned to help customers solve the most complex technology problems related to running a business.

To me, this proposed acquisition totally redefines the industry, resetting the competitive landscape by creating a company with great reach, expertise and innovation. A combined Oracle/Sun will be capable of cultivating one of the world's most vibrant and far reaching developer communities, accelerating the convergence of storage, networking and computing, and delivering one of the world's most powerful and complete portfolios of business and technical software.

I do not consider the announcement to be the end of the road, not by any stretch of the imagination. I believe this is the first step down a different path, one that takes us and our innovations to an even broader market, one that ensures the ubiquitous role we play in the world around us. The deal was announced today, and, after regulatory review and shareholder approval, will take some months to close - until that close occurs, however, we are a separate company, operating independently. No matter how long it takes, the world changed starting today.

But it's important to note it's not the acquisition that's changing the world - it's the people that fuel both companies. Having spent a considerable amount of time talking to Oracle, let me assure you they are single minded in their focus on the one asset that doesn't appear in our financial statements: our people. That's their highest priority - creating an inviting and compelling environment in which our brightest minds can continue to invent and deliver the future.

Thank you for everything you've done over the years, and for everything you will do in the future to carry the business forward. I'm incredibly proud of this company and what we've accomplished together.

Details will be forthcoming as we work together on the integration planning process.

Jonathan

Re:The internal announcement

[mzs]

The rumors are that the IBM deal fell through when IBM balked at the size of the golden parachutes that Sun expected. My guess of what happened is that Oracle was scared of IBM+Sun as their competitor. So they bought Sun so IBM wold not. Oracle does not really believe all of the stuff they stated (about financials) and others are inferring (like they were interested in MySQL, Java, sparc, etc). They simply saw that if they offered a better deal to the Sun execs they could prevent the creation of the most serious competitor they had ever faced. The Sun execs cared more for themselves than the long term good of Sun's products and employees.

Facinating combination

[downix]

What we have here on one hand is Oracle, a company that is incredibly well run, but with products that don't cover a complete spectrum, and Sun, a so-so run company with a wide range of product lines. This can go two ways, Suns platform quality goes down while Oracles management goes down with it, *or*, and this is the scenario I hope for, Oracle cleans out the dead wood in Sun management, and adopts the Sun technology in force. I've worked on Oracle machines, and Sun machines. I've also delt with both companies sales forces. If the synergy can be hammered out, this can really shake up the business world.

One suggestion tho, keep both names. Use Sun for the hardware, Oracle for the software.

Re:Wow. Just Wow.

[eldavojohn]

Oracle likes to buy a lot of companies, but they've all been, more or less, niche players in specific markets to fill in the gaps of their own offerings. I can't imagine what "gap" buying Sun will fill, other than something will be certainly be filled.

Application server? Java development environment? Control of the Java language? UI Technology? Hardware?

Everyone seems to be missing the big picture: Oracle's goal is to offer you a fully supported "stack" from database to application server to hardware and everything in between. All the development tools, technologies, languages, etc. So they can lock you in and offer you the full range of support, no handing you off to so and so because it's not a database problem anymore. Would you pay a premium for that? That's how you make money. And now, they have filled a lot of those gaps and have absorbed some great teams to make that dream a reality. Or so they believe. We'll see how this turns out.

Re:Well, crap.

[ozamosi]

Is 8am too early to start drinking?

No.

Postgres is looking better than ever

[shis-ka-bob]

It remains a functional relational database. It has a BSD-style license with a very stable, nearly bug-free (see Coverity) core. It has modular design (you can write procedures in Java, C, C++, T/SQL, R, Python and others. You can get commercial support from a company (EnterpriseDB) that doesn't have a vested interest in moving you to a very expensive alternative.

Re:Postgres is looking better than ever

[rho]

Their string comparisons are case sensitive.

8.4 has citext. Or you can make an index with lower() on the appropriate columns.

IMO it's preferable for software to not assume that "Helped my uncle Jack off a horse." and "Helped my uncle jack off a horse." are the same thing.

Re:Postgres is looking better than ever

[Improv]

On the other hand, it makes selling tickets to the event easier.

Re:Postgres is looking better than ever

[Just Some Guy]

Imagine this - I need to grab the physical file for a db or table.... what do I look for?

Imagine this - you'd never, ever want to do that with a production database. What good is a copy of a table file with no context, no foreign key integrity, no transactional integrity, nothing? If you must back up a single table, pg_dump works.

Java 8 Preview

[characterZer0]

Java 8 will replace String with String2, which will treat empty string and null the same.

I doubt it

[shis-ka-bob]

MySQL is in a very different niche than Oracle. When is the last time you saw Oracle used as the back end for a Wiki or a large company use MySQL for an enterprise ERP system? It may happen that somebody uses a product outside of its niche, but like a lungfish on land, it just isn't as effective as something that has evolved to better fill that role.

Re:I doubt it

[wlt]

MySQL is in a very different niche than Oracle.

I'd think MySQL is one of the reasons Oracle bought Sun. Whatever its failings, MySQL is the "default" choice for most new (small) deployments (I mean, to the extent there's the LAMP acronym for it), the ones that are too small for Oracle to care about.

Now that Oracle has it, they're in a position to "upsell" them once they get far enough. They now control both the high end AND the low end ("... the horizontal and the vertical..."). I'd expect an upper limit to the effort put into scaling MySQL up ("we already have a high-end DB, why waste the effort?"), but I don't see them abandoning it.

Re:Wow

[wlt]

Actually. I think it might well go the other way. That Oracle decided to fork/clone Red Hat shows one thing - Oracle WANTS to have an OS.

Now they have one.

Re:Site already slashdotted ...

[jamesh]

Seems oracle.com is down :(

They've switch to Solaris already???

(ducks and runs for cover :)

Re:I just hope...

[sfraggle]

Hey! Did that guy just use "synergies" in a non-ironic fashion? Get him!

Should I feed the troll?

[egghat]

Source IDC 2008:

market share:

"Unix, mid-to-high-end servers ($17.2 billion in 2008)

IBM 37.2 pct
Sun 28.1 pct
HP 26.5 pct

"

Don't give a flying fig about Suns servers?

IIRC Solaris still has the highest market share among proprietary Unixes. And AIX ist only third after HP-UX.

And if you think about Oracle as a database company you've kind of missed the last 8 years or so. They've bought a lot of stuff and are number two behind SAP.

"IBM provides Java and Java products. "

Well I guess Sun does that too.

Regarding virtualization: XVM Server

Should be enough to keep the troll busy ;-)

Bye egghat

Re:Should I feed the troll?

[TheRaven64]

Sun has a massive presence in the virtualisation market:

• xVM, which you mention, is Xen with a Solaris dom0. A lot of people associate Xen with Linux, but it can run quite happily with Solaris or NetBSD domain 0 guests providing hardware access and no Linux anywhere. The xVM configuration uses Solaris for hardware support and for running the management system.
• The SPARC systems all support logical domains, allowing you to partition the system into typically around 64 virtual machines in hardware. You can run anything that supports the native hardware on these, but you get better performance with virtualization-aware guests. I believe Linux falls into this category - OpenBSD and Solaris definitely do, meaning that you can run an isolated OpenBSD firewall on the same machine you run your Solaris server.
• VirtualBox is now an impressive desktop virtualisation program. Most interestingly, it now supports an interchangeable format for VM images, meaning that in future you will be able to prepare virtual appliances in VirtualBox and then deploy them on xVM. It also supports 3D acceleration for Windows and Linux guests.

IBM may have been doing virtualization for longer than anyone else, but they certainly aren't the only ones with an impressive lineup in that area anymore. Their POWER systems have the same kind of hardware partitioning that SPARC supports, but they still seem to regard it as an enterprise feature.

Scared after seeing what happened to Berkeley DB

[HardWoodWorker]

I love BDB. Oracle bought them and now they've hampered open source involvement. You can't see their source repositories. All you can do is get a zip of their latest release. I don't think any non-Oracle employee contributes to BDB. Read-only open source is barely open-source. I don't want the same to happen to Java, Glassfish, and Netbeans.

Good move...for Oracle

[ErichTheRed]

I remember seeing Oracle rebranding high-end server hardware recently, and tweaking Oracle to run ultra-fast on that particular configuration. Now they have a hardware platform (Sun's x86 and Sparc lines), a software infrastructure (Java) and a marketing lock (Sun hardware and Oracle database purchases seem to go hand in hand, even now.)

So it's a good move for them. We'll see how well it works out for everyone else. Oracle hasn't been known for developing products that don't require an army of Oracle consultants to get working. If they use the Sun acquisition to build their "database in a box" product, then customers face lock-in on the hardware and software fronts, just like back in the mainframe/midrange days.

It might be the cynic in me talking, but Oracle has been one of the major causes of large-scale IT failures you read about in the industry press. It's helped along by bad requirements and idiotic lowest-bidder consulting firms, but Oracle is sometimes forced to pay large settlements for running a project over budget. That's just a natural side effect of designing products that are so complex that you have no choice but to buy support. Also, you have to wonder what Oracle's going to do with MySQL now...

Oracle consumed J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft and BEA. Let's see how well they digest this one!

That 7.4 billion bought a sh*tload of useful I.P.

[cpu_fusion]

This was an intellectual property firesale. IBM = idiots. Congratulations to anyone who realized Sun stock was ridiculously undervalued; you deserve the profit you made by buying low.

I agree

[shis-ka-bob]

I think this is exactly right. Now every time IT installs a MySQL database, the CEO will see 'Oracle'. They will have warm fuzzy feelings because they know Oracle is serious software(TM). They will also see that Oracle doesn't have to be expensive. They will then have the same sort of up sell opportunity that Microsoft had with Access to SQL Server, except of course that MySQL is not as f***ed up as Access. For MS, the upsell occurred as soon as you moved from personal to departmental. With Oracle, the line of division will be (roughly) division and enterprise.

Re: Solaris

[rackserverdeals]

I'm listening to the conference call now.

One of the first thing Larry Ellison said was two of the main reasons they were buying sun were for Solaris and Java.

Solaris/Sparc is the largest base where Oracle is deployed. Linux is number 2. He also said "Solaris is the best unix techonology available in the market."

Solaris isn't going anywhere.