Following the revelation that IBM was considering buying the Sun, the negotiations have broken down and IBM has withdrawn from the purchase. However, enterprise software giant Oracle has jumped in on the act and has said it will now buy the Sun instead.
However, at a press conference earlier today the management team at Oracle were stunned to realise they were actually paying around $7Billion for The Sun, the UK tabloid newspaper. The fact was pointed out to them by a reporter, who asked what Oracle intended to do with the purchase.
Recovering quickly, the Oracle spokesman said yes, they had intended to buy the newspaper actually, and any idea that they had really wanted to buy this solar system's star or a technology company was just 'uninformed press speculation'.
The spokesman went onto explain that they intended to merge some elements of the paper with their own operation, but they would also be divesting some elements which did not mesh with their key operations to HP.
HP, the UK sauce maker has a relationship with Oracle already, and has secretly expressed an interest in the saucy parts of The Sun. However, the story got even stranger when it became apparent that Oracle were actually referring to the Houses of Parliament, and that they intended to sell the news reporting part of the paper to the British Government.
So once again I explain the complex business news in a way that the conventional business press would not even recognise.
