Oracle to Buy Sun Micro for $9.50/Share

Updated from 9:03 a.m. EDT

Oracle(ORCL Quote) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems (JAVA Quote) for $9.50 a share in cash.

The deal is valued at $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt, the companies said in a statement Monday.

Shares of Sun were rising 35.9% to $9.09 in recent trading.

"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."

The announcement Monday follows the recent collapse of merger talks between IBM(IBM Quote) and Sun. IBM apparently withdrew its offer over price, but Sun was reported to still be interested in inking a deal with IBM.