Although designed primarily for San Francisco buildings, the free, on-line resource is being promoted as adaptable for any geographic location and is divided into three sections: a general green leasing guide, tips [...]]]> San Francisco Launches Green Leasing Toolkit for Commercial Office Buildings
by Stephen Del Percio, Green Real Estate Law
November 3, 2011

Although designed primarily for San Francisco buildings, the free, on-line resource is being promoted as adaptable for any geographic location and is divided into three sections: a general green leasing guide, tips on stakeholder engagement, and a checklist of items summarizing key sustainability metrics for any property.

Earlier this year, New York City took an important step towards becoming the country’s leader in public green leasing practices when Mayor Bloomberg’s Green Lease Task Force released model green lease language aimed at addressing the split incentive in most commercial office leases. The language was incorporated with much fanfare by Silverstein Properties into its lease with the law firm WilmerHale at the LEED Gold 7 World Trade Center, as well as adopted by the City for all of its future leases.

Now, recently after it was named North America’s greenest city in a study published by Siemens, San Francisco has fired back by launching a Green Tenant Toolkit of its own, created at the recommendation of the San Francisco Mayor’s Task Force on Existing Commercial Buildings. Although designed primarily for San Francisco buildings, the free, on-line resource is being promoted as adaptable for any geographic location. It was developed by a 26-member group of real estate and environmental professionals representing brokers, property management, large tenant groups, attorneys, electrical utilities, and design and construction experts, assembled by San Francisco’s Business Council on Climate Change.

The Toolkit is divided into three sections: a general green leasing guide, tips on stakeholder engagement, and a checklist of items summarizing key sustainability metrics for any property. The toolkit isn’t written for lawyers. But it appears to be a good jumping off point for tenants and landlords that are unfamiliar with green leasing generally and want to get up to speed quickly, regardless of where they may find themselves in the leasing process. And it’s also worth noting that the New York City model language (along with our article discussing the WilmerHale lease at 7 WTC) is included in the Green Tenant Toolkit’s database of additional resources.

As you may recall, San Francisco led two major urban green building indices this year: the study from Siemens and, for a second consecutive year, the city topped Cushman & Wakefield’s Green Building Opportunity Index. We reviewed the Index’s analysis of New York City’s Midtown submarket – which placed second overall in the Index – over the summer here at GRELJ in significant detail.

Source: http://www.greenrealestatelaw.com/2011/11/san-francisco-launches-green-leasing-toolkit-for-commercial-office-buildings/

A landmark along the Tokyo-Osaka railway, Sanyo's Solar Ark is 344 yards wide with an annual output of 530,000 kWh. (Credit: Sanyo)

Struggling with a continuing nuclear crisis and strains on its power supplies, Japan is [...]]]> Japan eyes solar panels on all new buildings
by Tim Hornyak, cnet.com
May 24, 2011

A landmark along the Tokyo-Osaka railway, Sanyo's Solar Ark is 344 yards wide with an annual output of 530,000 kWh. (Credit: Sanyo)

Struggling with a continuing nuclear crisis and strains on its power supplies, Japan is thinking of requiring that all new buildings, including homes, come equipped with rooftop solar panels by 2030, according to a recent Nikkei newspaper report.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan may announce the plan this week at a G8 summit in France, the business daily reported. Kan has pledged to review Japan’s energy policy and increase renewable sources following the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis.

Kan hopes a solar-energy requirement for new buildings, along with technological innovation, would help reduce the cost of solar-power generation.

The government’s current energy policy includes plans to increase nuclear energy to more than half of the total supply by 2030 as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Japan now gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear sources.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said today that three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant probably suffered meltdowns early into the emergency, and their inner pressure vessels may have been breached. While Units 2 and 3 experienced partial meltdowns, Unit 1 was most severely affected.

An International Atomic Energy Agency team has also begun to look into how Japan has handled the worst nuclear accident in decades, which has left parts of the Tohoku region uninhabitable.

Tepco is trying to get the reactors under control by January. Its April electricity output was down 15 percent from a year earlier and shortages are expected to continue into the summer. Since western Japan runs on a different frequency, Tepco can’t easily import large power supplies from other cities.

Japanese have been cooperating with emergency power conservation campaigns since the quake. As a result, they’ll likely be less keen to use air conditioning, so this summer may be particularly hot and sticky in Tokyo.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/japan-eyes-solar-panels-on-all-new-buildings/8301-17938_105-20065704-1.html

As production of the fuel-efficient 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano begins this fall at the General Motors Orion Assembly Plant, 40 percent of the energy required to build the vehicles will come from burning [...]]]> GM to use landfill gases as an energy-saver at Orion plant
by Suzanne Ashe, cnet.com
May 23, 2011

As production of the fuel-efficient 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano begins this fall at the General Motors Orion Assembly Plant, 40 percent of the energy required to build the vehicles will come from burning gas from a nearby landfill. (Credit: General Motors)

General Motors has taken steps to make the Orion Assembly Plant even more energy efficient including using landfill gas to cut energy costs.

The plant will begin assembling the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano this fall. With an upgraded paint shop that is heated by natural and landfill gas, the painting process will use half of the energy per vehicle of the one it replaced. The system runs exclusively on landfill gas primarily to generate steam for heating and compressed air for most of the year.

According to GM, both the Sonic and Verano use a new eco paint that eliminates the need for a primer oven and increases quality and appearance due to waterborne base coats.

Running a full three-shift capacity, the Michigan plant will reduce greenhouse gas production by about 80,000 metric tons, the equivalent of 14,000 vehicles per year, and the electricity reduction equals the output from 3,500 homes. This will save the automaker $1.1 million a year in energy costs.

From 2005 to 2009 Orion Assembly Plant workers reduced total waste by 26 percent.(Credit: General Motors)

“Orion is a great example of the latest technologies employed by GM manufacturing around the globe,” said Eric Stevens, GM vice president of Global Manufacturing Engineering. “As we converted the facility to support the small car program, we took every opportunity to engineer in flexibility and lean manufacturing concepts.”

Use of landfill gas is just one of the ways the plant lessens its environmental impact. GM has also made lighting system upgrades that save more than 5,944 megawatts of electricity per year (at a cost savings of $430,000) and has cut carbon dioxide by 3,676 metric tons.

Plant workers track energy use on an hourly basis with sophisticated software, enabling them to see real-time usage by department to improve their equipment shutdown activities, GM said.

“Environmentally friendly choices often translate to higher efficiency and quality,” said Maureen Midgley, GM executive director of Global Manufacturing Engineering.

Source: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20065400-48.html

Seattle Seahawks President Peter McLoughlin checks out a Solyndra solar array on the roof of Qwest Field. (Credit: Solyndra/Corky Trewin)

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar [...]]]> News: Seattle Seahawks home to add Solyndra solar panels
by Candace Lombardi, cnet.com
May 18, 2011

Seattle Seahawks President Peter McLoughlin checks out a Solyndra solar array on the roof of Qwest Field. (Credit: Solyndra/Corky Trewin)

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar arrays from Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra are racks of thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells shaped like tubes. The racks will cover approximately 2.5 acres, about 80 percent, of Qwest Field, Solyndra announced yesterday.

Solyndra is known for its tube-shape solar cells that capture direct, diffuse, and reflected sunlight throughout the day without the need for a rotating mechanism, the method often used to maximize the efficiency of flat solar panels.

The arrays for Qwest Field will come from Solyndra’s state-of-the-art solar manufacturing plant in California, which was built in part with a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The plant is a showcase for U.S. green-tech manufacturing: It employs over 1,000 people operating robotics manufacturing tools as a way to curb production costs and compete against inexpensive solar panels from China while keeping jobs in the U.S.

In this case, the arrays will also take advantage of the light reflected from the Seattle stadium’s white “cool roof,” which was originally installed to reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the building. Because Solyndra’s panels can capture reflected light, the white roof reflection should increase the system’s electricity production, according to Solyndra.

The solar system is being installed by McKinstry, an energy solutions company that has also designed and installed Qwest Field’s low-flow water fixtures and high-efficiency lighting systems.

When complete at the end of the summer, the solar installation is expected to generate enough electricity annually to power the equivalent of 95 homes, and result in a 21 percent reduction in the stadium’s utility costs. As a way to promote and educate people about solar technology, fans will also be able to track the electricity production and use at computer kiosks on the stadium grounds, according to Solyndra.

The Seattle Seahawks team is owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who recently created the Green Sports Alliance in conjunction with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Green Sports Alliance, which has the endorsement of six pro sports leagues as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, has made it its mission to persuade sports stadiums around the U.S. to upgrade their environmental efforts

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20063981-54.html

The Blythe plant will use parabolic trough technology, in which heat from mirrors generates steam that passes through turbines to create electricity. (Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

The world’s largest solar power plant cleared an important hurdle [...]]]> Calif. solar plant, to be world’s largest, wins key approval
by Reuters
September 16, 2010

The Blythe plant will use parabolic trough technology, in which heat from mirrors generates steam that passes through turbines to create electricity. (Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

The world’s largest solar power plant cleared an important hurdle on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for a dramatic expansion in solar energy generation in the United States and around the world.

The proposed $6 billion-plus Blythe, Calif., plant, originally proposed by Chevron and Solar Millennium, won clearance to build from the California Energy Commission.

The plant has a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. By comparison, for all of last year, the U.S. installed about 481 megawatts of solar energy, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. The largest solar plants to date are in the 200- to 350-megawatt range.

The Blythe plant essentially groups four 250MW plants, with the first slated to start generating electricity in 2013. The total price tag is estimated at north of $6 billion.

On Wednesday, Solar Millennium said it and Ferrostaal were the sole two co-developers, working through a U.S. joint venture, Solar Trust of America. Chevron maintained it was still a co-developer through Chevron Energy Solutions.

The commission said it had received no word that Chevron had dropped out. Although Chevron is still listed as a developer on the commission’s Web site, it didn’t mention Chevron in its press release about the approval.

The developers have already struck an agreement with Southern California Edison, which has said it will purchase the full capacity of the first two plants.

The plant will make electricity by using mirrors to heat a fluid that generates steam, which expands through steam turbine generators. The technique is known as parabolic trough technology.

It is one of nine proposed California solar plants that federal and state regulators are trying to evaluate by the end of the year.

Solar plants that begin construction before December 31 qualify for a Treasury Department grant totaling 30 percent of a project’s cost, as part of last year’s economic stimulus package.

Building Blythe would create up to 1,004 construction jobs, a spokeswoman for Solar Millennium says. Unemployment in the area slated for the plant is above the state average of 12.35 percent, commissioners said during a meeting Wednesday.

If all nine fast-tracked plants win approval and are constructed, they will create an additional 4,300MW of solar power. But the bulk of the plants won’t start generating energy until 2013.

For Blythe, the developers still need final approval from the Bureau of Land Management for use of public lands. The BLM is scheduled to rule on the matter toward the end of next month.

To win the most favorable financing from outside investors, the developers must also secure a Department of Energy loan.

The DOE is currently evaluating the Blythe plant’s proposal, including its engineering and financial models.

Having the DOE approval “really lowers the risk to the eventual lender,” says Burt Chao, an analyst at Simmons & Co. “The government’s pretty thorough in vetting these projects.”

The DOE, which has a large backlog of applications, is reviewing them “as quickly and efficiently as possible,” says Julie Offner, a DOE loan-guarantee analyst.

Story Copyright (c) 2010 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20016635-54.html#ixzz0zv1ABnaS

Just yesterday, architecture firm RMJM announced plans for a $1 billion, landmark green project for the Atasehir district of Istanbul, Turkey. The Varyap Meridian development is slated for a new residential and business district — and just might transform into [...]]]> $1B Green Project Planned for Istanbul
by Preston Koerner, JetsonGreen.com
August 12, 2009

Just yesterday, architecture firm RMJM announced plans for a $1 billion, landmark green project for the Atasehir district of Istanbul, Turkey. The Varyap Meridian development is slated for a new residential and business district — and just might transform into a new financial district for Turkey. Of course, the buildings will each seek LEED certification, and if obtained, it could be the first green development of its kind in the country.

Th 372,000 square meter development will sit on a site of 107,000 square meters and includes a 60-story tower, 1,500 residential units, a five-star hotel, offices, conference facilities, parking facilities, and landscaped public areas.

As massive as the project is, it’s planned to be completed in 2011.

The buildings will have unprecedented, panoramic views while minimizing the solar heat gain. And according to Building Design + Construction, some of the following green technology will be used: “rainwater collection sites and facilities to optimize water usage and reduce energy consumption, wind turbine technology, cooling water pools that enhance the external landscape, and a co-generation plant that will produce electricity for the development.”

Image Rendering credits: RMJM.

Source: http://www.jetsongreen.com/2009/08/rmjm-green-project-planned-atasehir-istanbul.html

Sacramento County plans to install a smart grid. (Credit: Sacramento Municipal Utility District)

Sacramento County’s community-owned electric utility has signed a deal for Silver Spring Networks to provide a smart grid for roughly 600,000 homes and businesses.

Installation is to begin [...]]]> Sacramento getting smart grid
by Candace Lombardi, CNET News
June 24, 2009

Sacramento County plans to install a smart grid. (Credit: Sacramento Municipal Utility District)

Sacramento County’s community-owned electric utility has signed a deal for Silver Spring Networks to provide a smart grid for roughly 600,000 homes and businesses.

Installation is to begin in July with an expected completion date tentatively set for March 2011.

So what will residents be getting?

The smart grid will include the installation of two-way electricity meters and home area networks that will provide real-time usage information, rate information, and the ability to control a building’s energy usage. This will allow users to monitor their electricity consumption, enabling them to adjust some of their energy usage habits (if they want to) from peak to off-peak hours. They would also be able to communicate with the kind of “smart appliances” under development by companies like GE.

Perhaps more importantly, the meters and smart grid will give the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), the sixth largest community-owned electric utility in the U.S., the ability to immediately monitor usage and determine usage trends across its entire service area.

The new system will reduce operating costs for SMUD and enable it to improve its reliability, while providing customers with more information about their energy usage, according to SMUD’s 2008 annual report (PDF).

“The new technologies will allow customers to make energy choices based on cost, comfort and convenience. Imagine a future where your appliances, electronic devices and programmable thermostat communicate with your electric meter, or where you can call up your energy profile on a laptop or a cell phone from any location,” said the report.

The new deal coincides with what many experts have been saying: smart grids may be the next green-tech bubble.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10271809-54.html

From a technology perspective, things have changed a lot since the first Earth Days of the 1970s.

After barely moving for decades, there’s been a surge in innovation in energy the past five years, fueled both by society’s growing interest in clean [...]]]> Green technologies to watch
by Martin LaMonica, CNET News
April 21, 2009

From a technology perspective, things have changed a lot since the first Earth Days of the 1970s.

After barely moving for decades, there’s been a surge in innovation in energy the past five years, fueled both by society’s growing interest in clean energy and by the technology revolutions in other industries, like IT and biotech. That has expanded the definition of clean energy from solar and wind to many other areas.

“We are in a new era of energy innovation,” declared Daniel Yergin last week at a forum on clean-energy policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yergin is someone who should know. As the author of “The Prize,” a book about the history of the oil industry, and co-founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, he advises CEOs of giant oil and gas firms on energy strategy. Like many people in green tech, he’s not a typical 1970s-era tree hugger but a hard-boiled business man who sees technology change driven by economic, environmental, and national security reasons.

Innovation “runs across all sectors and it has a very strong climate change focus,” Yergin said. “Clearly, one of the areas of major innovation is the nexus of transportation, smart grid, and renewable and alternative” energy.

Which technologies specifically have a good shot at making the biggest impact? As part of our Earth Day 2009 coverage, we try to handicap technologies that bear watching.

The list:
Utility-scale solar. Despite all the press around solar energy, its contribution to national electricity generation is barely a blip. But after a multi-decade hiatus, utility-scale solar power is back on the agenda, led in the U.S. by sun-blessed California’s renewable energy mandates.

Over the past five years, several start-ups have designed concentrating solar thermal systems that generate heat by focusing the sun’s light to make steam. The steam then turns a traditional turbine to make electricity. Desert areas like the Southwest region of the U.S. are tailor-made for this technology.
eSolar demonstration plant

Sign of more to come? eSolar’s demonstration plant in Lancaster, Calif.
(Credit: eSolar)

After racing forward for the last few years, concentrating solar upstarts have had to hit the brakes or change plans because of the cost and complexity–from environmental permitting, building transmission lines and the like–of these projects.

eSolar and BrightSource Energy stand out for having announced programs to move ahead with their solar tower technologies. Other relevant technologies in utility-scale solar are flat solar panels mounted on racks that follow the sun and concentrating photovoltaics from companies like Cool Earth Solar and SolFocus.

Energy storage. If solar was the technology that venture capitalists loved in 2007, last year and this year it’s energy storage. For investors and entrepreneurs who like a tough problem, they picked a good area.

Why are electric vehicles so expensive? The batteries. What will transform wind and solar power from variable to reliable sources? Storage. How do we make our power-hungry electronic gadgets last all day? You get the picture.

There are a dizzying number of technologies to store electrical energy but they just can’t seem to be too cheap, light, or environmentally benign.

The breakthrough for electric vehicles has roots in consumer electronics where lithium ion batteries have become the standard. U.S. companies on the forefront of making lithium ion batteries for cars and other portable electronics, like power tools, are Ener1 and A123 Systems, which signed a deal to supply Chrysler earlier this month.

Companies to watch in electric vehicles are, once again, high-profile Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive, which will release its plug-in electric later this year, and Bright Automotive, a company founded by the former head of General Motors’ EV1 program.

Meanwhile, a handful of progressive utilities are quietly dipping their toes into grid storage, installing one or two megawatt banks of batteries the size of tractor trailers or a small building. Although the lithium ion battery makers tend to get most of the attention, this is an area where alternative chemistries, such as zinc, or even stationary fuel cells are creeping in.

Efficiency. Ask nearly any clean-energy expert about the best way to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the most economical way and they’ll say efficiency. An investment in efficiency, whether it’s your home or your data center, will typically be the quickest payback when it comes to energy.

From a technology perspective, efficiency takes many forms, from Ford’s EcoBoost to deliver better mileage on gasoline engines to LED lighting. For the power grid, efficiency means smart-grid technologies that help utilities better match the supply of electricity with demand and give homeowners ways to cut their monthly bills.

Although the grid will get a major upgrade from the stimulus plan, it’s still unclear how many utilities can successfully make the financial case for investing in smart-grid technologies or how much consumers are willing to pay for home energy monitoring.

Carbon capture and storage. Even if there were massive uptake of efficiency technologies and renewable energy in the next 10 years, the world’s economy would still rely heavily on fossil fuels.

During a speech at last week’s MIT forum on clean-energy policy, John Holdren, the director of the president’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, said carbon capture and sequestration is a technology that deserves more research as a way to mitigate climate change.

Right now, though, technology for pumping large amounts of carbon dioxide underground is still not commercial. There are some companies, including GreatPoint Energy and Tenaska Energy, devising ways to make cleaner-burning natural gas from coal and to store carbon dioxide from that process underground.

The Department of Energy’s budget–which has not yet been passed–calls for $3.4 billion in research for “low-carbon coal technologies” to study whether it can be done safely and economically.

Disappointments and a reality check
Looking back at our coverage of Earth Day 2008, perhaps the biggest disappointment, economically and environmentally, was the biofuels area. Because of fluctuating commodity prices, corn ethanol providers got clobbered last year with at least two declaring bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, cellulosic ethanol made from wood chips or prairie grasses hasn’t yet been done at commercial scale as some in the industry had hoped. It’s still a goal worth pursuing because cellulosic ethanol has a better environmental profile than corn ethanol, but the economic turmoil has slowed progress.

The great hope–and perhaps the sleeper–for the biofuels industry remains the lowly algae, although even the most optimistic say that it will be three years before it can be produced at large scale.

Another disappointment on my list is roof-mounted small wind turbines for homes. It’s not that the technology doesn’t work, but two studies in the U.K. and Massachusetts have shown that the available wind on people’s homes is typically below manufacturers’ minimum requirements.

Finally, water technologies attract very little investment even though awareness of water problems continues to rise, fed by high-profile droughts in California and Australia.

Sum it all up and it’s clear there’s a flowering of innovation in energy and environmental products, from people’s homes to businesses. At the same time, we shouldn’t fool ourselves: technology alone won’t magically create a low-carbon economy and more sustainable lifestyles.

A healthy green-tech industry requires a healthy financial system and supportive policies. Many people are aiming for technology breakthroughs and, no doubt, there will be surprises along the way. But given the scope of the problem, it’s clear the road to a greener economy will be long, expensive, and will need a different set of rules.

This story has been updated. See below for details.

Oracle, not IBM, will be buying Sun Microsystems.

Oracle and Sun announced Monday that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun [...]]]> News: Oracle to buy Sun in $7.4 billion deal
by Jonathan Skillings, CNET News
April 20, 2009

This story has been updated. See below for details.

Oracle, not IBM, will be buying Sun Microsystems.

Oracle and Sun announced Monday that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. That puts the value of the transaction at about $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.

Oracle President Safra Catz said in a statement:

We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined.

Sun made its name as a supplier of server hardware during the dot-com heyday, but its best-known technology is software: the Java programming language. In the Monday morning announcement, the two companies said that Java is the “most important software Oracle has ever acquired.”

An early take from my colleague Larry Dignan at ZDNet:

My hunch is that (Oracle CEO Larry) Ellison saw the possibilities of integrating hardware and software with Oracle’s Exadata database machine. Ellison boasted that the Exadata machine has seen strong demand on Oracle’s earnings conference call.

Sun’s board has unanimously approved the transaction. The deal is expected to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, regulatory approvals, and closing conditions.

Last month, reports surfaced that IBM wanted to buy Sun, but Sun didn’t like the terms that Big Blue was offering.

Update, 5:59 a.m. PDT: On a conference call to present the deal to investors, Catz emphasized that Oracle expects to make money from its Sun property.

“We intend to ensure that it is profitable,” Catz said, having noted that Oracle will combine the software assets quickly after closing the deal. “We believe we will be able to run Sun at substantially higher margins.”

In its most recent quarter, Sun reported a net loss of $209 million, or 28 cents a share, on revenue of $3.22 billion. Revenue was down 11 percent year over year.

Also on the call, Ellison said that Java is “critical” to Oracle’s middleware and that the company’s middleware offerings are on track to be as big as its database business. Sun’s Solaris software, he said, is “by far best Unix technology available on market,” though he also spoke well of Linux.

Sun Chairman Scott McNealy and CEO Jonathan Schwartz joined Oracle’s team on the call.

“We’re thrilled to be acquired by Oracle,” McNealy said.

Historical footnote, 6:35 a.m. PDT: Ellison didn’t always see Sun as a desirable takeover target. In 2003, when Oracle was in the throes of trying to acquire PeopleSoft, Ellison said that buying Sun would be a “bad idea.” At Oracle’s annual shareholder meeting that October, Ellison said: “I don’t think Oracle should be in the hardware business, so I don’t think you’ll see us buying any hardware companies.”

Update, 9:50 a.m. PDT: Sun’s shares jumped about 35 percent when the stock market opened Monday to $9.07, following Friday’s close at $6.69, and have been holding at about that level through the morning.

Oracle’s shares opened about 7 percent lower, at $17.77 versus Friday’s closing price of $19.06. The stock has since risen to about $18.60.

Sun stock movement:

Sun's stock jumped around 35 percent first thing Monday on word of Oracle's takeover bid. (Credit: Yahoo Finance)

Reporters caught up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Moscow to get his take on Oracle’s deal to buy Sun, but apparently Ballmer, who is rarely at a loss for words, didn’t exactly have a sound byte at the ready.

“I need to think about it,” Ballmer told reporters. “I am very surprised.”

Oracle is, of course, one of Microsoft’s chief rivals in the database and business applications space–a fact that Ballmer highlighted in an interview in February. Sun is also a longtime rival, although the two companies have had a technology partnership in recent years stemming from their settlement of legal hostilities back in 2004.