Last week Sun's shareholders agreed to sell the company to Oracle for $7.4billion.  The transaction still needs to be approved by Oracle shareholders and meet Department of Justice approval but the party-line is that it should close by the "end of the summer". 

The regulations on what can happen within a company between accepting a deal and it closing are complex and strictly enforced, for example there have been strict guidelines issued about what can and cannot be said in blog posts...  During this time Oracle and Sun have to operate as two separate companies, meaning Sun cannot make any business decisions as the result of the impending acquisition.  It also limits Sun on what we can say to customers - any "forward-looking statements" are a big no-no. 

The press is reporting that sales have been hit hard - which makes sense, it's a tough sales pitch when you can't talk about the future...  IBM and HP, Sun's biggest competitors, have been running massive advertising campaigns targeting the uncertainty of doing business with Sun - and there's nothing Sun can say in response.

There's also the human side to the transaction:  there's no guarantee anyone will still have a job when the deal closes, and even those that do have a ton of questions around culture (for example, how Oracle will cope with the 50% of Sun's workers who are not based at an office location - see my blog from last week) and how the integration will work.  It's obviously an uncertain time for everyone with rumors flying around all over the place - even worse if you are not in the same country or on the same time-zone as the rest of your team. 

The internal rumors aren't being helped by the fact that press reports say Oracle is trying to sell-off a large part of Sun's business intact.  (Although this has been consistently denied.)

Spending the last 12 weeks in this environment, I arrived about 3 weeks after the acquisition was announced, has been a unique experience and one I have taken a massive amount from.  It's been really interesting seeing the realism and openness displayed by many of the senior execs and how people have reacted to news as it has been appearing in real-time.

Communication comes through as the most important issue.  I think everyone here understands the uncertainty and aren't expecting the execs to perform miracles but people do expect that any news will be given clearly and fairly, and that questions will be answered where possible. 

The Saltire Fellowship has been, and will be, all about the experiences for me and my 12 weeks here at Sun have certainly been an experience.