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Ballmer, IBM Surprised By Oracle-Sun Deal

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-didn't-see-it-coming dept.

Geon Lasli writes "Reporters caught up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Moscow to get his take on Oracle's deal to buy Sun Microsystems for US$7.4 billion. Ballmer was at a loss for words: 'I need to think about it. I am very surprised.' According to a source, IBM hadn't given up on purchasing Sun and was blindsided by Oracle's move. I guess IBM must be regretting playing tough 2 weeks ago. Unknown to outsiders, Sun had probably found the Oracle lifeboat before they decided to pull the plug on the deal."

4 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I Feel His Pain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Dude, anyone who doesn't know all the lyrics to American Pie deserves to be shot.

  2. I was surprised too... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I want my own Slashdot article. I was surprised too. Shall we start enumerating all the people who were surprised? This is a non-story. It's like interviewing the neighbors after there was a murder in the house down the street...it doesn't really matter if all the neighbors thought he was a quiet guy who kept to himself.
    I know I'll get modded as a troll or offtopic, but seriously... let's just stick to reporting the story and not reporting what people thought of the story as another story.

  3. Worst case scenario for Ballmer by downix · · Score: 0, Troll

    Microsoft managed to reach its position through bullying and using it's position in one market to force its way into others (eg Office and DOS). Now what we have here is another quite ruthless company which just put together a platform which can out-bully the bully, using it's strong position in one market to now force its way into others. I can easily imagine the conversation, "So, Mr mega-bank, I know you enjoy our database software, have you ever considered the benefit of our servers as well?"

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    Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
  4. Re:More like they dodged a bullet. by binarylarry · · Score: 0, Troll

    Settle the fuck down there, small fry.

    -jcr

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