The acquisition will give Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle control over Sun's Java language and Solaris operating system. Oracle's Fusion Middleware, its fastest growing business, is built on top of Java. Its largest business, the Oracle database, uses Solaris. Combining Oracle's enterprise business software with Sun's computing systems will enable the engineering of fully integrated systems, says Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
The acquisition, expected to close this summer, has ramifications for the health care industry where both companies have been targeting more opportunities.
Oracle has many pharmaceutical firms and hospitals as clients, as well as an active health care users group. Last June, the company created a Health Sciences Global Business Unit to place its health care applications in a single division. These applications include clinical, data capture, thesaurus management, adverse event reporting, life sciences data management and clinical trial management systems.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems has participated in several health information exchange initiatives, funded by the federal government, to test components of a national health information network.
Both organizations also sponsor initiatives to expand the use of open source software in health care. Oracle is a founding member of Open Health Tools Inc., created a year ago. It is based on the model of the Eclipse Foundation, which is an open source community of developers who provide software components that others can use to build software products. In announcing the Sun acquisition, Oracle said it is "as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance our strong industry partnerships."
Sun Microsystems in early 2008 was a co-founder of the Open eHealth Foundation. Members commit to using existing Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise profiles as the guideline for developing open source components for exchanging medical information.
Oracle expects the acquisition to add at least 15 cents per share in earnings and $1.5 billion in operating profit, on a non-GAAP basis, in the first full year after closing.
More information is available at oracle.com and sun.com.
--Joseph Goedert
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