Oracle "won't sell off Sun hardware"

 

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By Barry Collins and Reuters

Posted on 8 May 2009 at 09:16

Oracle boss Larry Ellison has denied speculation that his company will sell off Sun's hardware business when the company completes its $7 billion takeover.

Ellison shook up Silicon Valley last month by unexpectedly signing a deal to buy Sun, the world's fourth biggest maker of servers, and the developer of Java and Solaris software.

Some analysts have speculated that Oracle, the world's largest database software maker, actually wants Sun's software assets and that it might eventually dispose of the hardware business.

Ellison, however, says that the hardware remains crucial to Oracle's strategy. "We are definitely not going to exit the hardware business," Ellison says. "If a company designs both hardware and software, it can build much better systems than if they only design the software. That's why Apple's iPhone is so much better than Microsoft phones."

Rumours of Oracle's disinterest in the hardware business had sparked speculation that Sun customers may begin to look towards other server providers.

Yet, Ellison insists the company plans to boost investment in Sun's SPARC processors to help drive the market forward. "We think designing our own chips is very, very important. Even Apple is designing its own chips these days," he says.