IBM staring at Sun Micro takeover?
Published:18-March-2009
By Kevin White
Media speculation of $6.5bn deal in progress
IBM Corp is considering paying at least $6.5 billion to acquire Sun Microsystems Inc, The Wall Street Journal has reported today.
Sun has supposedly approached several technology companies including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, but seemingly IBM is considered the best prospect as it would help reinforce its hold of the enterprise data centre where it is facing competition from HP and now Cisco Systems.
If the deal does get done, it could be the largest acquisition in IBM's history.
Neither IBM not Sun or saying anything about the speculation, and the paper said it had been cautioned that, “while talks are under way, a transaction might not occur and the talks could fall apart.”
Sun shares have plummeted over the past year and the company reported losses of $209 million for its second quarter ended December 2008.
