Oracle - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Sun shareholders approve Oracle merger

  Sun Microsystems' shareholders voted on Thursday to approve the company's acquisition by Oracle, but not by a wide margin.

• Oracle's software development reins in new hands

  Oracle's executive vice president of product development, Charles Rozwat, is taking a one-year leave of absence and his responsibilities will be assumed by Thomas Kurian, currently senior vice president of Fusion middleware.

• Sun expects sharp revenue drop ahead of Oracle vote

  Sun Microsystems said it expects to report a sharp drop in sales for the June quarter as it prepares to put its planned acquisition by Oracle to a shareholder vote later this week.

• Oracle middleware users go easy on 11g upgrade

  Oracle's Fusion Middleware 11g release has succeeded in bringing an integrated BEA WebLogic application server under the Oracle umbrella, but some customers will be staging their upgrades over the new 12 months instead of an immediate migration.

• VMware offering 'safe passage' to Virtual Iron users

  VMware is trying to exploit uncertainty among customers of Virtual Iron, the virtualization vendor recently acquired by Oracle, with a new "safe passage" plan that offers Virtual Iron users steep discounts on certain VMware products if they switch.

• Economy forces IT to cope with dumped products

  Gregg Davis, CIO at Webcor Builders Inc., became concerned last fall when Oracle Corp. bought Primavera Systems Inc., because Webcor was a heavy user of Primavera's SureTrak construction scheduling software.

• Sun shareholders will vote on Oracle deal on July 16

  Sun Microsystems has scheduled a special shareholders meeting for July 16 for a vote on whether to accept Oracle's US$7.4 billion proposal to buy the company. Sun's board has unanimously recommended the transaction go through.

• Oracle cuts some support prices - temporarily

  Just a week after rival SAP AG revised its plan to raise support costs, Oracle Corp. announced plans to offer small, short-term discounts to large customers using older versions of its software.

• Oracle aims to differentiate with BI application releases

  Oracle on Wednesday announced Business Intelligence Applications Release 7.9.6, which includes improvements and integrations with other Oracle software, as well as a pair of new programs, Project Analytics and Loyalty Analytics.

• Sun's revenue drops 20 per cent ahead of Oracle buy

  Sun Microsystems reported a sharp drop in revenue for its third fiscal quarter, as the company battled uncertainty about its future along with the global recession.

• Oracle leaves 'em wanting more on its plans for Sun

  Oracle Corp.'s announcement last week that it plans to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. raised questions about, well, almost every aspect of the blockbuster deal that would unite two Silicon Valley icons.

• Are price hikes in store for Sun software support?

  Oracle's pending purchase of Sun Microsystems may not have an immediate effect on what customers currently pay to use Sun software, but changes are likely coming, observers said this week.

• Sun ties identity app to Google, Amazon cloud platforms

  Sun has tied its identity federation software to Google Apps and added its directory and Web application server to the cloud platform it is building for developers to build and test applications.

• Schwartz: Sun to 'operate independently' until deal is done

  Sun Microsystems Inc. CEO Jonathan Schwartz called it "one of the toughest e-mails I've ever had to write" when he told Sun's employees that Oracle was buying the company.

• Sun unveils MySQL update as Oracle deal looms

  Sun Microsystems on Tuesday unveiled an early look at MySQL 5.4, the next version of its open-source database, one day after Oracle said it is buying Sun for $US7.4 billion.