Sun today reported results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2009, ending March 29, 2009.

Revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 were $2.614 billion, as compared with $3.266 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2008, and compared with $3.220 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2009. Total gross margin as a percent of revenues was 42.7, a decrease of 2.2 percentage points as compared with the third quarter of fiscal 2008 and an increase of 0.8 percentage points as compared with the second quarter of fiscal 2009.

Net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 on a GAAP basis was $201 million, or $(0.27) per share on a diluted basis, as compared with a net loss of $34 million, or $(0.04) per share, for the third quarter of fiscal 2008, and compared with a net loss of $209 million, or $(0.28) per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2009. GAAP net loss per share includes a restructuring charge of $46 million primarily related to the restructuring announcement of November 2008.

On a non-GAAP basis, net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 was $52 million, or $(0.07) per share on a diluted basis, as compared with a non-GAAP net income of $132 million, or $0.17 per share, for the third quarter of fiscal 2008, and compared with a non-GAAP net income of $114 million, or $0.15 per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2009. Non-GAAP net income per share excludes purchased in-process research and development, amortization of acquisition-related intangibles, stock-based compensation, restructuring and related impairment of long-lived assets, net gain or loss on equity investments and the tax effect of these non-GAAP adjustments.

Sun ended the quarter with a cash and marketable debt securities balance of $2.990 billion and generated cash flow from operations for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 of $178 million – the third consecutive quarter of positive cash flow from operations in fiscal 2009, and following upon 19 consecutive years of positive cash flow from operations.

This Register article gives details on an employee-only town hall meeting between Oracle executives and Sun employees. Not a lot of new information, but so far it looks like Sun isn’t about to be gutted and sold off in pieces.

Announced this morning:

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 20, 2009 — Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) and Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.

“We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,” said Oracle President Safra Catz.

“The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”

There are substantial long-term strategic customer advantages to Oracle owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. Java is one of the computer industry’s best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle’s fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software. Oracle can now ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle’s largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. Oracle is as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance our strong industry partnerships.

“Oracle and Sun have been industry pioneers and close partners for more than 20 years,” said Sun Chairman Scott McNealy. “This combination is a natural evolution of our relationship and will be an industry-defining event.”

“This is a fantastic day for Sun’s customers, developers, partners and employees across the globe, joining forces with the global leader in enterprise software to drive innovation and value across every aspect of the technology marketplace,” said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s CEO, “From the Java platform touching nearly every business system on earth, powering billions of consumers on mobile handsets and consumer electronics, to the convergence of storage, networking and computing driven by the Solaris operating system and Sun’s SPARC and x64 systems. Together with Oracle, we’ll drive the innovation pipeline to create compelling value to our customer base and the marketplace.”

“Sun is a pioneer in enterprise computing, and this combination recognizes the innovation and customer success the company has achieved. Our largest customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk and cost by delivering a highly optimized stack based on standards,” said Oracle President Charles Phillips. “This transaction will preserve and enhance investments made by our customers, while we continue to work with our partners to provide customers with choice.”

The Board of Directors of Sun Microsystems has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Sun released new Open Systems products today, all powered by the Intel Xeon 5500-series processors (except for the Ultra 27, which has a Xeon 3500-series CPU).

* Sun Blade X6270 bladeserver module
* Sun Blade X6275 bladeserver module
* Sun Fire X2270 server
* Sun Fire X4170 server
* Sun Fire X4270 server
* Sun Fire X4275 server
* Sun Ultra 27 workstation

All of these new systems and blade modules have Flash-based solid state disks (SSDs) as a supported option.

Sun VirtualBox 2.2 has been released.

VirtualBox 2.2 introduces support for the new Open Virtualization Format (OVF) standard, as well as significant performance enhancements and updates.

It looks like “xVM” has been dropped from the product name, and it is now just “Sun VirtualBox” instead of “Sun xVM VirtualBox”.

According to this NYTimes article, IBM has withdrawn its offer to buy Sun Microsystems for $7 billion.

This NYTimes article says that IBM is on the verge of buying Sun for $7 billion.

Something that may be of interest to SunHELP readers, and is not an April Fools day gag:

SGI has been acquired by Rackable Systems for $25 million cash after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier today.

Press releases are available from SGI and Rackable. News articles about the acquisition are up at the New York Times, The Register, and Reuters.