Report: IBM-Sun discussions fall through late in the game

Reuters is reporting that acquisition talks between Sun Microsystems and IBM have collapsed after the smaller company rejected an offer said to be $9.40 / share or less. That reflects a substantial drop from the original offerings of $10-$11 / share, and a decrease from a reported offer of $9.50 / share late last week.

A Sun-IBM merger would have given the new entity a commanding share of the Unix server market and allied one of the Net's pioneering firms with a computing company that has weathered an impressive array of changes in the tech landscape. Sun, which has been cutting staff and otherwise tidying up for potential suitors, is not known to be in discussions with any other company.