Sun puts price tag on acquisitions
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company spent $23 million for Pixo, $65 million for CenterRun and $136 million for Waveset, according to Sun's quarterly report filed Thursday. The acquisitions were all announced and closed in the second half of the year.
The acquisition costs of Pixo and Waveset were not stated earlier, while CenterRun had previously been pegged at $66 million.
The three companies developed products that Sun said it will use to expand its software portfolio. Sun primarily obtains its revenue from selling servers: Most of the software the company sells today is made for the company's hardware. In the future, Sun hopes to sell software to customers regardless of the underlying computers.
Pixo created and sold Java software for mobile devices while CenterRun and Waveset developed
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Although some large companies have difficulty in managing acquisitions, Sun has a fairly strong record of being able to absorb outside technologies into its products, according to analysts and the historical record.
The SEC filing also reiterates the difficulties Sun has been facing. In the second half of 2003, revenue declined to $5.4 billion from the $5.7 billion reported in the second half of 2002. Net losses came to $411 million, compared with a $2.4 billion loss for the second half of 2002, a figure that included several charges.