Oracle, which inherited the SPARC CPU machine architecture from its big Sun Microsystems acquisition from way back in 2010, made its biggest SPARC-related announcement ever since. The company is developing a new multi-core SPARC processor, codenamed "M7." This chip, according to Oracle, will not only be in the same league as today's contemporary enterprise CPU architectures, but will also feature Oracle's on-chip optimizations, such as special on-chip firmware, that improves performance and security of applications.

A large, on-chip micro-code would work to ensure security of in-memory databases (the chip would feature an integrated memory controller), and hardware-accelerated compression/decompression of very large databases for near real-time analytics. The M7 is the first SPARC-based processor designed from the ground-up by Oracle, and it will go on sale later this week, as part of the company's new T-series and M-series servers. It will also be offered in upgrade kits for Oracle Supercluster, a high-density machine designed specifically for Oracle.

Oracle today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Eloqua, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based marketing automation and revenue performance management software for $23.50 per share or approximately $871 million, net of Eloqua's cash. Eloqua's modern marketing cloud delivers best-in-class capabilities to ensure every component of marketing works harder and more efficiently to drive revenue.

The combination of Oracle and Eloqua is expected to create a comprehensive Customer Experience Cloud offering to help companies transform the way they market, sell, support and serve their customers. The combined offering is expected to enable organizations to provide a highly personalized and unified experience across channels, create brand loyalty through social and online interactions, grow revenue by driving more qualified leads to sales teams, and provide superior service at every touchpoint.

NETGEAR, Inc., a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and service providers, today announced the new NETGEAR Developer Program, a revolutionary, simple way for developers to create new apps to help customers get more out of the millions of NETGEAR devices purchased every month. In an industry first, NETGEAR has created a huge opportunity for developers to produce apps by leveraging the NETGEAR Smart Network architecture built into an increasing number of its consumer and small-business devices, including a selection of routers, gateways and network-attached storage (NAS) devices.

Developers simply register at the NETGEAR Smart Network website (here), where they can access all the Java-based building blocks they need to create apps. NETGEAR makes it easy for developers to share or sell their apps through the NETGEAR genie+ marketplace. For the first time, home and small business customers can remotely download apps directly to their connected NETGEAR devices just as they would to a smartphone or tablet - to expand functionality. No other network vendor offers an app development platform or app store for these types of devices.

During the JavaOne 2012 Strategy Keynote, AMD announced its participation in OpenJDK Project "Sumatra" in collaboration with Oracle and other members of the OpenJDK community to help bring heterogeneous computing capabilities to Java for server and cloud environments.

The OpenJDK Project "Sumatra" will explore how the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), as well as the Java language and APIs, might be enhanced to allow applications to take advantage of graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration, either in discrete graphics cards or in high-performance graphics processor cores such as those found in AMD accelerated processing units (APUs).

Micron Technology, Inc., announced today that it reached an agreement with Oracle America Inc. to settle a lawsuit filed by Oracle against Micron in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The lawsuit alleged a conspiracy to increase DRAM prices and other violations of federal and state antitrust and unfair competition laws based on purported conduct for the period from Aug. 1, 1998, through at least June 15, 2002, and sought joint and several damages, trebled, as well as restitution, disgorgement, attorneys' fees, costs and injunctive relief. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, the parties agreed to a settlement and release of all claims and a dismissal with prejudice of the litigation.

According to the International Data Corporation's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market decreased 7.2% year over year to $14.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11). This was the first quarterly decline in factory revenue in two years. Worldwide server shipments increased 2.0% to 2.2 million units in 4Q11 when compared with the year-ago period.

For the full year 2011, worldwide server revenue increased 5.8% to $52.3 billion when compared to 2010, while worldwide unit shipments increased 4.2% to 8.3 million units.

On a year-over-year basis, all three classes of servers experienced decreased factory revenue totals in the fourth quarter. Volume systems experienced a 2.0% year-over-year factory revenue decline to $8.8 billion, while midrange revenue decreased 4.6% to $1.8 billion when compared to 4Q10. Additionally, high-end system revenue declined 18.4% to $3.7 billion in the quarter. This is the first time all three server classes have experienced year-over-year declines in revenue since the third quarter of 2009.

Today Fox Business is reporting U.S. and European regulators approved Google Inc's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility on Monday and said they would keep a sharp eye on the web search giant to ensure patents critical to the telecom industry would be licensed at fair prices. The U.S. Justice Department also approved an Apple Inc -led consortium's purchase of a trove of patents from bankrupt Canadian company Nortel Networks.Both the Justice Department and European antitrust authorities said that they would monitor how patents are used to ensure they comply with antitrust rules. Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are concerned that patents essential to ensuring communications devices sold by different companies work together are licensed for a reasonable fee.

Enabling IT departments to better manage data-intensive environments through new security and reliability features and record-breaking performance, a new family of server processors that accelerate mission-critical computing have been announced by Intel Corporation.

The record-setting Intel Xeon processor E7-8800/4800/2800 product families build on Intel's previous generation of server processors to set a new standard for high-end computing applications, including business intelligence, real-time data analytics and virtualization. Strengthening the line of defense for data centers, the new processors also provide advanced security features that ensure greater data integrity.

Oracle corporation is on a big buying spree after this year's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, a prominent server builder. Oracle wants to strengthen its enterprise IT business with the acquisition of a major chip-maker, right now AMD, IBM (its processor division), and NVIDIA are being named by prominent analysts. "You're going to see us buying chip companies," Ellison, 66, said yesterday at Oracle's annual meeting in San Francisco. Currently its subsidiary, Sun Microsystems has its own processor architecture, the SPARC. Gleacher & Co. analyst Doug Freedman predicts Oracle is chasing AMD, IBM (chip division) and NVIDIA. "You've got to think it's focused on enterprise hardware, on the server," he said. "AMD jumps off the screen."

Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation 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.