Sun Microsystems Inc. has reported a 20 percent drop in its revenue for its third fiscal quarter. This is after Sun was reported to be up for sale and was reportedly being pursued by IBM. The lucky winner acquiring Sun ended up being Oracle Corporation and an agreement was reached two weeks ago for $7.4 billion.

However, with the report by Sun that its revenue for the quarter was $2.61 billion, down 20 percent from the same time period one year ago and well below the $2.86 billion that financial analysts had anticipated. Sun’s net loss was $201 million, compared to its loss last year of $34 million. This also occurred after Sun’s x86 servers sales declined for the first time. The loss included a $46 million restructuring charge that included the layoff of nearly 6,000 of its employees.

Sun was hard hit by the recession, as most of its large customers are financial services companies. The company posted losses in the last four of its past five quarters, with revenue declining each quarter. Oracle has been seen as a dark horse to save Sun since Oracle’s business focuses on software, and it is unclear what Oracle might gain from Sun’s hardware other than selling off the server and chip businesses. Oracle has indicated that its interest was in Sun's Java and Solaris businesses.