Former Sun CEOs Scott McNealy and Ed Zander were at a Churchill Club dinner earlier this week and McNealy shared a story about how the company almost bought out Apple. However if that deal went through, we most likely would not see the invention of iPods or iPads because McNealy said he wold “have screwed that up.” Around 1995, Sun was one of the largest producers of servers, data storage systems, and unix data center software. When Sun was at one of its highest points, they went into negotiations for buying out Apple.

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.”