Oracle Has Customers Over a Barrel

摘要

Over the past four years, Oracle Chief Executive Lawrence J. Ellison has been on an acquisition binge that has brought all sorts of benefits to the company. After spending $30 billion to buy 56 companies, he has doubled the software giant's revenues to an es -timated $24 billion this fiscal year and sent Oracle's stock surging. Ellison's latest deal is one of his most ambi -tious to date. His $7.4 billion offer for Sun Microsystems, which still needs approval from European regulators, would move Oracle into the hardware business for the first time and greatly expand Ellison's empire.