IBM to Nab Rival Sun for $7B

(NEWSER) - Oracle Corp. has agreed to buy Sun Microsystems, swooping in after Sun’s talks with IBM fell apart. Oracle will pay $7.4 billion, or $9.50 a share for Sun, the Wall Street Journal reports, a 42% premium on Friday’s close. Though Sun has been losing money, Oracle expects the deal to tack $1.5 billion onto its profits in the first year, and called Sun’s Java platform “the most important software” it’s ever acquired. More»

Services pick up the slack from core hardware divisions

(NEWSER) - Sun Microsystems today reported a profit of $260 million for the quarter ending Dec. 30, MarketWatch reports. Though total revenue was $3.62 billion, Sun’s service and sales were responsible for most of the gains, growing to $1.37 billion from $1.31 billion in the same quarter last year. Hardware product sales fell slightly from $2.26 billion to $2.25 billion over the same interval. More»

Oracle and Sun Microsystems may be only tip of the iceberg

(NEWSER) - Recent acquisitions by Sun Microsystems and Oracle could be the opening round of new Silicon Valley deal-making, the Wall Street Journal reports, as tech companies worried about a US economic slowdown seek to strengthen their positions. Smaller companies struggling to stay afloat are tempting targets; bigger fish also want to invest in building web-based software and services—a still-growing sector. More»

Company's software products model business decisions

(NEWSER) - IBM will buy Cognos for $5 billion, the latest in a rash of “business intelligence” software acquisitions. The move could help IBM keep up with SAP AG and Oracle, each of which recently teamed with similar companies, the AP reports. The purchase price is a 9% premium over Cognos’ Friday close; both companies’ stocks rose on the news. More»

(NEWSER) - Stocks turned south this morning, as a series of downgrades and bad news for the Sun/IBM deal spooked investors ahead of earnings season, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Dow dropped 92, the S&P 12. Financials sank after a veteran analyst downgraded 11 major US banks. The Nasdaq fell 33, after a downgrade from Cisco and a report that the Sun takeover deal was in jeopardy. More»