1. SIMS Oracle-Sun Acquistion Hal R. Varian

2. SIMS IBM-Sun –IBM announced Sun deal at reported value of $9.55 share = $7 billion on April 3 –After legal review, reduced it on April 5 to $9.40 –IBM concerns: change of control contracts –Sun concerns: “hell or high water” clause –“Sun is damaged goods.”

3. SIMS Oracle-Sun April 21 Oracle announces Sun acquisition at $9.50/share –$260 million break up fee stock price What are implications?

4. SIMS Analysis Complements –Hardware (servers) + software (database)‏ Database appliance One stop shopping –Application (database) + middleware (Java)‏ –OS (Solaris) + application (databse)‏ –High end database (Oracle) + low end database (MySQL)‏

5. SIMS Antitrust Merger of complements usually not an issue; IBM was a bigger issue Sticking point: MySQL

6. SIMS Pricing Versioning? –Low end database transition to high end? –Open source could be an issue Built in customer list –Differential pricing a big deal –Use MySQL to compete with SQL server? –Build product line?

7. SIMS Bundling ELLISON: 'Microsoft was a latecomer to word processing, which was dominated by WordPerfect. It was a latecomer to spreadsheets, which was dominated by Lotus. Microsoft was late to graphics, dominated by Harvard Graphics, and late to desktop database, which was pioneered by Ashton- Tate/dBase. So what happened to all these companies? They vanished, because everyone wants all the pieces linked together, and they buy Microsoft Office.” –http://www.americanwaymag.com/oracle-corporation-larry-ellison-microsoft-e-business

8. SIMS Lock-in Fairly high switching costs for corporate database Switching costs increased by bundling Can build middleware to database links with Java expertise Oracle in position to reduce switching costs for MySQL customers Want to offer system integration services, but this is tricky due to best of breed v integrated solution

9. SIMS Economies of scale Supply side –Large development costs as with any software Demand side –An “industry standard” –Developers build applications on top –Communication links via middleware

10. SIMS Competitive landscape Other database companies (EMC, Sybase, etc.)‏ SAP: Oracle's longtime rival IBM: former suitor Microsoft: OS? Database? Cloud computing?