themselves," Oracle said at that time.

Even so, many suspected Oracle intended to sell or close parts of Sun's hardware business.

"Larry Ellison, with one short interview, has turned the server side of the industry on its head. Many industry observers and players believed that Oracle would either sell or wind down Sun's hardware business," said Dan Olds, principal analyst with Gabriel Consulting Group.

"This should prompt concern and late nights at Dell, Hewlett Packard, and IBM headquarters. Oracle is a factor in a large percentage of enterprise server deals, and if Oracle has a compelling integrated hardware and software solution, it will be more difficult for the other vendors to compete with," Olds said.

After the acquisition of Sun goes through, Oracle plans to step up investments in the Sparc processor. Unlike Intel's Xeon family of microprocessors or Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron chips, Sparc doesn't work with software written for the x86 instruction set. But Ellison sees value in having control over features at the silicon level of its hardware systems.