How Apple Dodged a Sun Buyout: Former CEOs McNealy, Zander Tell All

“Would there be iPhones, iPads and iPods on the market today if
Sun Microsystems had been able to close a deal to buy out Apple in
the mid-1990s?

“No, says former Sun CEO Scott McNealy. “If we had bought Apple,
there wouldn’t have been iPods or iPads … I’d have screwed that
up,” McNealy conceded in a talk Feb. 24 with another former Sun
CEO, Ed Zander, at a Churchill Club dinner at the Santa Clara
Convention Center.

“…A Wall Street darling in the 1980s and ’90s, Sun fell on
hard times in the 2000s and ultimately was bought by Oracle in
January 2010 for $7.4 billion.

“But there was a time when Sun, at its wealthiest, was poised to
buy Apple when it was at the lowest point in its storied history.
“

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