It's said that Sun turned down IBM's buyout bid and went with Oracle because they thought that there'd ultimately be fewer layoffs with Oracle. Of course, no one really knows how things would've played out if IBM had taken over Sun.
I was an analyst at the time and an IBM acquisition of Sun never made sense to me. The Oracle acquisition did--even if I didn't personally like it for a variety of reasons.
Hope they enjoy the Blue Washing(TM)