SAN FRANCISCO — Oracle Corp. agreed to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. for about $7.4 billion in cash, swooping in after the server maker's talks to be acquired by International Business Machines Corp. failed.

Oracle will pay $9.50 a share, 42 percent more than Sun's closing price on April 17. Oracle plans to make Sun a profitable part of its business and said the purchase will add $1.5 billion to operating earnings, excluding some items, in the first year.

The takeover moves Oracle, the world's second-largest software maker, into the market for server and storage computers, pitting the company against IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. Oracle chief executive officer Larry Ellison also gains Sun's Java programming language and Solaris operating system, which work with its top-selling database program.

"They're really going to zero in on just the most strategic part of Sun's hardware business," said Heather Bellini, an analyst at UBS AG in New York, with a "buy" rating for Oracle's shares. "They'll end up making the company much better run."

Excluding Sun's cash and debt, the deal is valued at $5.6 billion, Oracle said in a statement. Sun had about $2.6 billion in cash and marketable securities, and about $700 million in long-term debt at the end of 2008. Oracle has about $11.3 billion in cash and marketable securities.

Sun, based in Santa Clara, California, rose $2.46, or 37 percent, to $9.15 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading at 5 p.m. Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, dropped 24 cents to $18.82.

IBM was in takeover discussions with Sun in the past month, offering as much as $9.40, until negotiations broke down over price and terms, according to people familiar with the situation. IBM spokesman Ian Colley declined to comment yesterday.

Sun's shares had gained almost 80 percent the day reports of the talks with IBM surfaced, only to drop 23 percent the day after the deal collapsed. Sun's board voted for the Oracle deal "with enthusiasm", Sun chief executive Jonathan Schwartz said in an e-mail to employees that was obtained by Bloomberg News.

Sun's Java technology lets developers write programs that work across operating systems and on a variety of devices. There are about 6 million Java developers, according to Sun. The software has been installed on 800 million desktop computers and also powers 2.1 billion mobile devices.

Oracle said it relies on Java for its Fusion middleware, software that helps applications share information. Middleware is Oracle's fastest-growing business, Ellison said today on a conference call, and is on track to be as large as the company's database business.

"Java is the single most important software asset we have ever acquired," Ellison said. Oracle will continue to expand the Java business, he said.