Oracle buys Sun for $US7.4 billion

April 21, 2009:Oracle CEO Larry Ellison says the acquisition of Sun Micrososystems will provide a unique capacity to engineer all the way from " applications to disk.

"The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems," he said.

The Java software architecture and Solaris operating system were two areas highlighted by Oracle in its announcement. Sun had previously flirted with a takeover by IBM.

The company said Oracle Fusion Middleware, which is is built on top of Sun's Java language and software, is its fastest growing business, while the Solaris OS is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle's largest business.

"Oracle and Sun have been industry pioneers and close partners for more than 20 years," said Sun Chairman Scott McNealy. "This combination is a natural evolution of our relationship and will be an industry-defining event."

Comment on this story.