It was a déjà vu moment in the Hartley household this morning as I learned about the acquisition of Sun by Oracle.

My wife worked at Peoplesoft when Oracle acquired it. That acquisition, as you may recall, was very acrimonious and lasted for a ridiculously extended period. Despite all of that acrimony, Oracle treated the Peoplesoft employees incredibly well. As I recall, everyone at Peoplesoft had an offer for their new job or a severance package within the first week the acquisition closed.

Oracle acquiring Sun is not going to be acrimonious. It's done and agreed to with shareholder and regulatory review being the remaining barriers to completion. I expect, based on my personal experience and the fact that Oracle has had even more experience with acquisitions since, that the integration of Sun into Oracle will go even more smoothly than Peoplesoft.

The other thing I observed that came from the Peoplesoft acquisition was an unleashing of innovation and a spawning of new companies. Some companies, like Workday, were spawned to compete with Oracle. Others like Knowledge Infusion were created to provide professional services to Peoplesoft customers. Other companies in similar fields benefited as former "Peoplesofties" were hired into their ranks.

Sun's acquisition was not acrimonious, but there have been rumors of our acquisition for weeks now that have created uncertainty and doubt among our customers. Now that uncertainty can be laid to rest. The press announcements, analyst calls and other press stories make it clear that Oracle is buying Sun and plans to retain and grow in key product areas. It also makes clear that there will be fewer job losses with Oracle buying Sun than another hardware company that may have overlapping product lines. This is not only good news for our employees but also the economy as a whole.

It's terrific news for our customers and our partners too, who we all feel strong loyalty to as well. Many of the Sun employees have been selling to Educational institutional for years. We love that we help our customers run their organizations more effectively but equally we feel that we're helping do important things for society as a whole, with the improvements in education and research that technology brings. Recently we've also been expanding into healthcare as well. Healthcare, like education, is an important business opportunity - but you can't help to feel you are contributing in a significant way to the improvement of the quality of life or lifespan of society. Government typically addresses the challenges that the private sector cannot solve or at which they can make a profit. By definition, government challenges are then the greatest to solve. The people on my team love the customers and challenges they face and feel pride in helping solve these problems.

The Hartley household had a déjà vu moment this morning. The good news for my kids is that they know that these things don't necessarily have a bad ending. I think our employees, customers and partners will see that too.