Oracle Corp plans to hire 2,000

Software maker Oracle Corp is planning to hire 2,000 people in sales and engineering department, as the company is near to close its long-delayed acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc, says a media report.

In an interview to The Wall Street Journal, Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said that he is setting a new course for Oracle that includes hiring 2,000 sales and engineering employees and developing a line of high-end computer systems.

He said his planned new hires would outnumber the cuts Oracle is making in Sun's head count, which stood at 27,596 as of September 30. Oracle, which had 83,366 employees at the end of November, was widely expected to slash Sun's workforce.

"We are not cutting Sun to profitability," Ellison said adding, "we think that this business will be profitable immediately."

He said he plans to transform Oracle into a company that is as serious about server systems the big back-office computers used for processing corporate data as it is about business software.

According to the publication, Sun delisted itself from the Nasdaq Stock Market on Tuesday, a sign that the takeover was nearly complete, though no formal announcement was made.

Oracle announced in April its intention to acquire Sun for $7.4 billion, but the acquisition was delayed by an in-depth review by European antitrust regulators.