As Oracle prepares to buy it, Sun says its loss widened on restructuring, slumping sales

Sun’s loss widens on restructuring, slumping sales

SAN FRANCISCO — Sun Microsystems Inc.’s loss ballooned in the latest quarter as restructuring charges and a 20 percent drop in sales compounded the financial woes Oracle Corp. is set to inherit by acquiring Sun for $7.4 billion.

Sun, a server and software maker whose wobbly performance for most of the last decade pushed it into Oracle’s clutches, said after the market closed Tuesday that it lost $201 million, or 27 cents per share, in the three months ended March 29. A year ago, Sun lost $34 million, or 4 cents per share.

Stripping out one-time charges, including $46 million for a restructuring that has cost thousands of workers their jobs, the latest quarter’s loss amounted to 7 cents per share. Analysts were expecting a loss of 19 cents per share, but it wasn’t immediately clear if those numbers were directly comparable.

Sun’s sales of $2.61 billion were short of Wall Street’s forecasts. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting $2.86 billion.

Sun didn’t provide color on the quarter and did not hold its customary conference call with analysts, probably because of the pending acquisition by Oracle, which is expected to close this summer.

The deal, announced last week, was a surprise because Oracle hasn’t made hardware. More than half of Sun’s sales come from its hardware division, primarily servers and data storage machines. And Sun’s software properties, like the Java programming language and Solaris operating system, haven’t been big moneymakers. Oracle thinks it can change that.