Sun Won't Shine on Oracle

Oracle (ORCL) completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in January 2010 and in the last 15 months the stock has moved up about 16%. But longer term, I think this acquisition will be a drag on Oracle and the stock will lag the S&P 500 for years.

After Oracle acquired the hardware maker there were high fives all around. The Street loved the deal and management hyped up the importance of having a captive hardware company. With Sun, Oracle will be able to close lots of more lucrative software deals because the combined company sells the whole package -- so the talk went. Everything is engineered to work together. The Street loves the deal because Oracle will be able to entrench itself into a customer's business even further. To oust Oracle, you have to get rid of the hardware and the software. No small task....235 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.

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