Acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation
| Company type | Public (before acquisition) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer hardware and software |
| Fate | Acquired by Oracle Corporation |
| Successor | Oracle Corporation |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara , United States |
| Products | SPARC Enterprise, Java platform, MySQL, Solaris, OpenSolaris, OpenOffice.org, Hudson, Grid Engine |
| Parent | Oracle Corporation (since 2010) |
The takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation was finalized on January 27, 2010. This acquisition transformed Oracle from solely a software provider into the owner of Sun's hardware lines such as SPARC Enterprise, along with software assets like the Java platform.
The deal sparked concerns among antitrust authorities, advocates for open source, customers, and employees about Oracle’s competitive stance following the merger. The European Commission postponed its approval due to worries over Oracle’s intentions for MySQL, which competes directly with Oracle Database. Eventually, the transaction received clearance from the DG COMP, reportedly influenced by input from the U.S. DOJ Antitrust Division.
History
In 2006, discussions took place between Sun and Apple regarding a possible merger. Later, in late 2008, IBM initiated talks with Sun about merging, while another interested party—allegedly Hewlett-Packard—also engaged in negotiations. By March 2009, these discussions with both potential buyers had ceased without progress.
On April 20, 2009, Oracle declared a definitive agreement to acquire Sun at $9.50 per share in cash, amounting to roughly $5.6 billion after accounting for Sun’s cash reserves and debt. The shareholders of Sun approved this proposal on July 16, 2009; nevertheless, regulatory clearances were still required. The completion of the deal depended on antitrust approvals from various regions including the United States, Canada, the European Union, China, among others.
The acquisition received U.S. government approval on August 20, 2009. However, on September 3, 2009, the European Commission launched a thorough investigation centered on Oracle’s control over MySQL.
During delays in finalizing the acquisition, Sun announced on October 20, 2009 a global workforce reduction of 3,000 jobs due to financial strains. On November 6, Sun disclosed a 25% drop in revenue for the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 compared to the previous year, attributing the decline to economic challenges and uncertainties linked to the pending acquisition.
On January 21, 2010, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes granted unconditional approval for the transaction. Oracle officially completed the purchase on January 27, 2010.
Resignations
Following the acquisition’s completion, several prominent engineers departed from the company. Among them were James Gosling, the creator of Java (April 2010); Tim Bray, known for developing XML (February 2010); Kohsuke Kawaguchi, lead developer of Hudson (April 2010); and Bryan Cantrill, co-creator of DTrace (July 2010).
Prior to regulatory approval, the entire JRuby team left Sun to join Engine Yard. In early 2010, members of the Drizzle DBMS team also resigned collectively and moved to Rackspace.
Most executives at Sun Microsystems stepped down immediately after the acquisition was finalized, including CEO Jonathan Schwartz. However, John Fowler, who served as Executive Vice President of Sun’s systems group, stayed on at Oracle as Executive Vice President of Hardware Engineering.
Simon Phipps, who held the position of Chief Open Source Officer at Sun, exited in March 2010.
OpenSolaris and Solaris
At the beginning of 2010, doubts emerged regarding the continuation of OpenSolaris, particularly due to its exclusion from Oracle's official product plans.
In August 2010, a leaked internal communication disclosed that Oracle intended to halt the distribution of OpenSolaris releases, including the postponed OpenSolaris 2010.05 version. The memo further indicated that Oracle would stop publishing Solaris source code during its development cycle, opting instead to release it only after new versions were finalized. As a result, the OpenSolaris Governing Board dissolved, effectively bringing the project to a close. Nevertheless, independent development persisted through the Illumos fork.
On September 2, 2017, Phipps reported that Oracle had dismissed nearly all of Solaris’ core engineering team, suggesting that ongoing platform development was likely discontinued.
MySQL petition and forks
Oracle’s takeover of MySQL, an open-source database originally acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, sparked regulatory concerns within the EU Commission due to Oracle’s dominant market presence. This situation prompted the emergence of forks such as Drizzle (now discontinued) and MariaDB (actively maintained) to safeguard MySQL’s legacy. Monty Widenius, one of MySQL’s original creators, launched a petition advocating for either divestiture of MySQL or relaxation of its licensing terms from the stricter GPL conditions imposed by Sun and Oracle.
Java Android lawsuit
Oracle initiated legal action against Google over its implementation of Java within the Android platform. Android applications operate on the Dalvik virtual machine, which executes Java code compiled into a proprietary bytecode incompatible with conventional Java runtimes. This design allowed Google to circumvent licensing fees associated with J2ME; however, Dalvik’s architecture bore resemblance to Java technologies patented by Sun and later Oracle.
Initially, courts ruled against Oracle’s copyright claims on the Java Application Programming Interface (API), determining that reused API elements were not subject to copyright protection. Google was found responsible solely for minor literal code copying and faced only statutory damages; patent infringement allegations were dismissed. Oracle appealed this decision, and in 2014 the Federal Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling by declaring API structure copyrightable and sent the case back for fair use consideration.
In 2016, a jury concluded that Google’s use of the API qualified as fair use. Oracle appealed again, and in 2018 an appellate court decided that Google had infringed Oracle’s copyrights by utilizing their Java software in Android. Ultimately, in April 2021, the Supreme Court overturned this ruling with a 6–2 vote, affirming that Google’s API usage constituted fair use and remanding for further proceedings.
Apache Software Foundation resignations
The Apache Software Foundation withdrew from the Java SE/EE Executive Committee in response to Oracle’s refusal to grant access to a technology compatibility kit (TCK) for Apache Harmony, their open-source Java implementation.
OpenOffice resignations and forks
After Oracle discontinued OpenSolaris, apprehensions arose within the open source OpenOffice.org community regarding Oracle’s dedication to the project. This uncertainty led to the establishment of The Document Foundation and the creation of a LibreOffice fork designed as an interim solution pending Oracle’s involvement and potential donation of the OpenOffice.org brand.
Oracle reacted by requesting that members of the OpenOffice.org Community Council who participated in The Document Foundation step down due to conflicts of interest. Consequently, numerous contributors migrated to LibreOffice, which secured backing from organizations such as Red Hat, Novell, Google, and Canonical. LibreOffice launched its initial release in January 2011.
In June 2011, Oracle transferred ownership of OpenOffice.org trademarks and source code to the Apache Software Foundation, which subsequently re-licensed it under the Apache License. In 2012, IBM contributed its Lotus Symphony codebase to Apache, bolstering developer resources with IBM personnel. The Lotus Symphony code was then incorporated into Apache OpenOffice.
Hudson/Jenkins split
During November 2010, tensions arose within the Hudson community concerning project management and Oracle's authoritative role. Although discussions between principal contributors and Oracle resolved many issues, Oracle's December 2010 trademark assertion over the "Hudson" name created significant controversy. This led to a vote on January 11, 2011, proposing to rename the project to "Jenkins." The community decisively supported this change on January 29, 2011, resulting in Jenkins emerging as an independent initiative. Subsequently, on February 1, 2011, Oracle declared its plan to continue developing Hudson, regarding Jenkins as a separate fork rather than a mere renaming. Consequently, both Jenkins and Hudson have evolved as distinct projects, each viewing the other as a derivative.
Grid Engine
Oracle Grid Engine, previously known as Sun Grid Engine, was transformed into a proprietary product exclusively available through commercial licensing.
Project discontinuations
Oracle migrated Project Kenai, a platform similar to SourceForge for Java applications, to Java.net.
On February 2, 2010, Oracle terminated Project Darkstar, which was designed to tackle complexities in large-scale online gaming environments.
Client support policies
Oracle updated its support framework to require hardware coverage alongside software support. Under this policy, all hardware must be enrolled in Oracle Premier Support; otherwise, it will not receive official support.
In March 2010, the licensing terms for Solaris 10 downloads were revised to restrict free usage to a maximum of 90 days.
Virtualization products
In 2013, Oracle ended development on several virtualization solutions inherited from Sun, including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Sun Ray, and Oracle Virtual Desktop Client. Nevertheless, virtualization offerings such as Oracle Secure Global Desktop and VirtualBox remained actively supported.