Because the alternative was that IBM or HP would buy Sun - or they would simply disappear.
The result (in either case) would be a lot of IBM hardware salesmen crawling over Sun's customers saying things like:
If you want to switch to DB2 to go with your new IBM servers we can do you a deal.
The result (in either case) would be a lot of IBM hardware salesmen crawling over Sun's customers saying things like: If you want to switch to DB2 to go with your new IBM servers we can do you a deal.