According to sources, Sun and IBM are in talks for a merger that would reportedly have IBM spending $6 billion to acquire Sun. The purchase makes sense for IBM given that the company has the cash reserves and the purchase would increase its global portion of the sever market and give more customers access to its profitable software programs.

Sun has been reorganizing itself, which resulted in layoffs and a change to its internal structure that saw the top sales people handle only the top customers. The timing of the purchase rumor and the reorganization and layoffs at Sun is interesting and some see the two as related.

However, analyst Charles King from Pund-IT told eWeek, "That's possible [that the restructuring and the acquisition are connected], but I would say that if an acquisition does go through, there will be a major reorganization of the sales groups anyway. But I would expect that making a change as major as this had to have started months before any kind of acquisition was being considered."

Bloomberg reports that the Sun and IBM deal is rumored to be negotiating at $9 to $10 per share for Sun. However, sources close to the negotiations say that no agreement has been reached yet. Some believed that the deal could be announced today.

Buying Sun would give IBM 43% of the global server market and boost software business reports Bloomberg.