JB Song By Namewee, JB Kia Must Listen!

I actually found this video from Bon's blog. It looks like songs and videos by Namewee (黄明志 in Mandarin) always go viral very rapidly. Anyway this time I was a bit surprised at the beginning. Man, this is JB SONG! "新山真好", or "JB so good". I was thinking whether this was another 麻坡的华语 (muar chinese). After watching the music video, I can say the song is really nice, especially the melody. Suddenly I miss my hometown...Oh, JB so good! But of course you might notice that on the hand Namewee has put in some crime issues into the music video. After all, it is undeniable that the JB is no longer a safe place.

Enjoy!

Oracle To Buy Sun Microsystems For Approximately $7.4 Billion

Oracle to Buy Sun

SANTA CLARA, Calif. April 20, 2009 Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) and Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.

“We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,” said Oracle President Safra Catz.

“The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system - applications to disk - where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”

There are substantial long-term strategic customer advantages to Oracle owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. Java is one of the computer industry’s best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle’s fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software. Oracle can now ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle’s largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. Oracle is as committed as ever to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance our strong industry partnerships.

“Oracle and Sun have been industry pioneers and close partners for more than 20 years,” said Sun Chairman Scott McNealy. “This combination is a natural evolution of our relationship and will be an industry-defining event.”

“This is a fantastic day for Sun’s customers, developers, partners and employees across the globe, joining forces with the global leader in enterprise software to drive innovation and value across every aspect of the technology marketplace,” said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s CEO, “From the Java platform touching nearly every business system on earth, powering billions of consumers on mobile handsets and consumer electronics, to the convergence of storage, networking and computing driven by the Solaris operating system and Sun’s SPARC and x64 systems. Together with Oracle, we’ll drive the innovation pipeline to create compelling value to our customer base and the marketplace.”

“Sun is a pioneer in enterprise computing, and this combination recognizes the innovation and customer success the company has achieved. Our largest customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk and cost by delivering a highly optimized stack based on standards,” said Oracle President Charles Phillips. “This transaction will preserve and enhance investments made by our customers, while we continue to work with our partners to provide customers with choice.”

The Board of Directors of Sun Microsystems has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

There will be a conference call today to discuss the transaction at 5:30 a.m. Pacific time. Investors can listen to the conference call by dialing (719) 234-7870, passcode 923645. A replay will be available for 24 hours after the call ends at (719) 884-8882, passcode: 923645. A live audio webcast of the call will be made available at www.oracle.com/investor and a replay will be available for seven days after the call ends.

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision — “The Network is the Computer” — Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Source from: http://www.sun.com/third-party/global/oracle/index.jsp

So Oracle is going to acquire Sun Microsystems. This is a very big news to the IT industry and I am somehow quite concerned about it. Well, this acquisition can be either good or bad. Judging from the comments on the news, I can see many people are afraid that mySQL will be killed by Oracle. After all Oracle has its own database and mySQL has been one of the competitors for Oracle. But I believe Oracle will do something to make sure everything synchronizes well.

Anyway what concerns me is the future development of Java. I am studying IT and my course really focuses a lot on Java programming. After reading the news, I am pretty sure that Java will be even more popular despite it is already one of the most popular programming languages. What interesting is that the competition between Oracle and Microsoft is becoming more intense after this acquisition. My University doesn't teach me .NET technology so I would prefer to stick to non-Microsoft technology such as Java, Oracle, etc.

Initial D Arcade Stage 5 Trailer

What's more I can say about it? COOL! Make sure you watch the video above or you will regret! I missed those days when I went to arcade at Perling Mall with my friends, Eu jie and King just to play Initial D. And guess what, we had got to queue up to play the game simply because too many people wanted to play the game as well. On top of that, there were a few experts who are much older than us. One of them had a nickname called "Pro9" and he was one of the most professional players there. I heard he even participated in the game tournaments. He always smoked while driving and drifting his "car", sounds like Takumi's dad right? Lol!

Once in a while I still go there with my friends, Eu Jie and Andrew if I return to my hometown. But I can no longer see as many people there as before. I believe most of them are already bored with the game. Too bad the arcade there is only stage 3 but I heard my friend said stage 4 is a total failure. Hopefully stage 5 is at least as nice as stage 3.

Anyway I don't think I have a chance to play it even if the stage 5 is launched in Malaysia. I am just too busy with lots of assignments and personal projects. I wonder when the anime series will have stage 5. After all, the story is not ended in stage 4 yet.