Comment by adventured

The alienate and destroy part is likely. Very different situations otherwise.

Sun was essentially a dead shell that still held a few valuable pieces when Oracle purchased them. Overall the business was in terminal decline.

Red Hat, while wildly overvalued (as many things are/were in this bubble market), has a consistently growing business that is on good footing overall.

Their prior four fiscal year sales figures: $1.7b, $2b, $2.4b, $2.9b

They look like they could do $3.4b in sales for fiscal 2019.

Their profitability is mildly lacking and combined with their modest growth doesn't come close to supporting their extreme valuation (much less when the stock was 50% higher). It's not surprising the board might sell the company here, the stock market bubble is likely nearing an end, with interest rates rising or a recession coming up next (either of which guarantee it's over). Red Hat may not see much higher than this market cap for another decade - assuming continued modest growth - if they were valued at a more sane level.

Red Hat is riding relatively high. Sun was on its last legs as an independent entity. Red Hat very clearly does not need to sell here, if they do it's simply the board taking what is an extraordinary price (would have to guess the deal will value them at 60 to 80 times idealized 2018 earnings).