In a brief announcement last week, Oracle stated that the U.S. Department of Justice has approved its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems and terminated the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.
Sun's stockholders approved the transaction on July 16, 2009. The closing of the transaction is still subject to certain conditions, including clearance by the European Commission. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt.
"Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system-applications to disk-where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said when the agreement to acquire Sun was announced.
Oracle has also said that there are substantial long-term strategic customer advantages to owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. Java is one of the computer industry's best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle's fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun's Java language and software. Oracle can now ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.
The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle's largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. Oracle is as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance our strong industry partnerships.
For more information on Oracle, go here. For more information on Sun, go here.