What Was It Oracle Wants With Sun, Again?

Sun Microsystems’s (JAVA) last quarterly report as an independent company was about as miserable as earnings reports get. No surprise, then, that the company didn’t bother to issue a press release or hold a conference call with analysts to discuss them.

For its fourth quarter, Sun posted a loss of $147 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with a profit of $88 million or 11 cents a share in the same period a year earlier. Revenue dropped 31 percent to $2.63 billion. Excluding special items, the company said its quarterly loss was three cents a share.

A sad final showing for the former Silicon Valley icon, which is soon to become another acquisition notch in Oracle’s (ORCL) belt. The database giant won U.S. antitrust regulatory approval for its merger with Sun earlier this month, and a ruling from European regulators is expected in September.