Oracle Reportedly to Add 2,000 Workers

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. (TheStreet) -- Oracle (ORCL) plans to add 2,000 sales and engineering employees as it draws nearer to closing its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, in an interview Tuesday with the Journal, said his company's mission would change significantly following the closure of the Sun acquisition. Sun delisted from Nasdaq Tuesday, a sign the Oracle takeover was nearly complete, the Journal notes.

In the interview, Ellison outlined plans to transform Oracle into a company that is as serious about server systems as it is about business software.

Oracle's planned hiring will outnumber the cuts Oracle is making in Sun's headcount. "We are not cutting Sun to profitability," Ellison told the Journal. "We think that this business will be profitable immediately."

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, and some other top Sun executives, won't have roles at Oracle, sources familiar with the matter told the Journal.

Oracle is expected to unveil its plans for Sun publicly on Wednesday.

Ellison told the Journal he believes that the future of computing is in systems that combine hardware and software, similar to the way Apple (AAPL) functions. "It took us a while to decide that we would be better off with all of the pieces, and not working with partners," he said.