Tag Archives: Andy Bechtolsheim
Disney Buys Out Tapulous
Disney has acquired Tapulous. Tapulous is the company behind the Tap Tap Revenge game series founded by Bart Decrem. Decrem and COO Andrew Lacy will join Disney as VPs. Tapulous raised a total of $1.8 million from angel investors Marc Benioff, Jeff Clavier, Andy Bechtolsheim, and the late Rajeev Motwani. It is likely that Tapulous will be rolled into Disney Interactive Studios, the subsidiary that creates Disney games for Xbox, the PS3, etc. [TechCrunch]
Oracle Buys Sun Microsystems For $7.4 Billion; Now Owns MySQL and Java
After IBM recently backed out of making a deal with Sun, Oracle stepped up to the plate and bought out the Java-making company for an astonishing $7.4 billion. IBM’s offer was about $6.5 billion.
This will give Oracle the opportunity to become even more competitive against IT firms such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SAP, etc. Sun also holds the assets to two of the most impressive pieces of software Java and MySQL.
Sun Microsystems bought MySQL for $1 billion in January 2008.
“To me, this proposed acquisition totally redefines the industry,” wrote Sun President and CEO Jonathan I. Schwartz in an e-mail to Sun employees. “Let me assure you [Oracle is] single minded in [its] focus on the one asset that doesn’t appear in our financial statements: our people.”
Oracle will be paying $9.50 per share for common stock in Sun, but the agreement is subject to the Justice Department’s approval. Sun was founded by Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Scott McNealy. Oracle was co-founded by Lawrence (Larry) Ellison.
“Java is the single most important software we’ve ever acquired,” stated Ellison in a conference call. “With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle is now able to make all of the pieces of the technology stack fit together and work well.”