Sun Microsystems' profit report offers glimpse of what's in store for Oracle

Sun Microsystems (JAVA), the company that invented the Java programming language, reported what could be one of its last earnings reports as an independent company Tuesday. Earlier this month, after deal talks collapsed with IBM, Sun agreed to be acquired by information technology company Oracle (ORCL) in a deal valued at $7.4 billion.

The struggling server and software maker reported a net loss of $201 million, or 27 cents per share for the fiscal third quarter, while revenue fell to $2.61 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters forecast that Sun would lose 18 cents per share on $2.87 billion in sales.