OStatic

Oracle has released a PDF transcript of an interview with CEO Larry Ellison regarding its plans following the acquisition of Sun Microsystems. While the interview doesn't delve into the many questions surrounding what Oracle will do with Sun's open source products and initiatives, it does make very clear that Oracle will retain and extend Sun's hardware business, focusing on designing hardware and software to work together. That's going to be a complicated proposition for Oracle, and, as one observer notes, it may be good news for Linux.

Sun Microsystems, which is betting much of its future on open source, just reported its fourth-quarter numbers, and they were not rosy. The company's profit dipped 73 percent, year over year, for the fiscal quarter ended June 30th. Some observers are blaming the drop in profit on slumping revenues, but revenues were $3.78 billion, down only 1.4 percent from a year ago, and the company has continued with cost-cutting measures as the economy underperforms. The real reason for the slump in profits is that Sun has faced heavy competition from IBM and Hewlett-Packard in the high margin server market. Still, Sun maintains that its many open source initiatives will lead it toward brighter days.