Technology giants go shopping
Most consumers do not want to get a PCÂ by purchasing microprocessors, hard drives and operating systemm software from different suppliers and assemblin them all into a working computer. They prefer to buy a complete, customised machine from one supplier. Corporate customers increasingly want the same thing: a one stop shop for hardware, software and services. And the largest technology companies are deploying their huge cash hoards to make acquisitions to bolster their ability to be that single provider.
That trend drove Oracle, a leader in business software, to announce Monday that it was spending $7.4 billion to buy an ailing Sun Microsystems and get into the computer hardware business. Oracle beat our rival I.B.M. which considered buying Sun to enhance its own software offerings but ended serious acquisition talks about two weeks ago. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves,” Oracle’s chief executive, Lawrence J. Ellison, said on Monday.
