TheJunction.net

When asked what he thought of the Sun purchase by Oracle – “I need to think about it,” Ballmer told reporters in Moscow, “I am very surprised.”

I’m hearing that Ballmer wasn’t the only one surprised by Monday’s deal. According to a source of mine, IBM hadn’t given up on purchasing Sun and was blindsided by Oracle’s move.

Overlapping products and vastly different cultures will present challenges. But if they make it stick, the results could be great for both sides.

Whatever happened to “Thrive”… Kaiser Permanente has stated it would lay off 860 workers

Sun has long been cited as a target for IBM, Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ – news – people ) and Dell (nasdaq: DELL – news – people ). Analysts saw the talks as part of a consolidation trend, as HP, IBM and Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO – news – people ) jostle for control of corporate data centers and compete to supply the high-end computers that power complex corporate transactions and networks.