Oracle’s takeover of Sun turns software industry on its heels.

Oracle Corp’s purchase of Sun Microsystems Inc is expected to shake up the tech sector as it turns the software giant into a player in the hardware market and gives it new clout in software.

The $7.1 billion deal, which Oracle reached after the collapse of Sun’s talks with International Business Machines Corp, will make it the No. 2 player in the $17 billion market for high-end Unix computers used in corporate data centers. That puts Oracle behind IBM and ahead of Hewlett Packard Co.

The acquisition also gives Oracle control of Sun’s Java software, one of the world’s most widely used computer languages, and the Solaris operating system for Unix servers.

“This is a competitor that is much more formidable than Sun standing alone,” said Howard Anderson, a lecturer at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center and former CEO of the Yankee Group.

“If I were a Sun customer I was starting to get nervous about Sun. I was worried about their viability. I’m not worried about that anymore. I know that Oracle is going to be there.”

Read the full story here.

See Most Recent News