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Sun, a server and software maker that had a 27-year run as Silicon Valley’s brash independent. Now Oracle Corp. pounced on Sun Microsystems Inc. in a $7.4 billion deal Monday after rival IBM Corp. IBM is no longer interested in buying smaller rival Sun Microsystems Inc., at any price, CNBC reported yesterday, although many investors appear to believe a deal was still possible.

Oracle will pay $9.50 in cash for each Sun share. The price represents a 42 percent premium to Sun’s closing stock price of $6.69 on Friday, and is nearly twice what Sun was trading for in March, before word leaked that IBM and Sun were in buyout negotiations. Net of Sun’s cash and debt, the transaction is valued at $5.6 billion, Oracle said.

IBM had offered to buy Sun for $9.40 per share, but acquisition talks fell apart this month in a disagreement over price and the extent to which IBM was willing to see the deal through an antitrust review.

Sun, which invented the Java programming language used to develop applications for Web sites and mobile phones, had been reluctant to sacrifice its independence, even as it reported big losses. Despite billions in sales — $13.3 billion over the last four quarters — the company has not been able to turn a consistent profit, losing $1.9 billion in the same period.

A deal with Oracle might not be plagued by the same antitrust issues, since there is significantly less overlap between the two companies. Still, Oracle could be able to use Sun’s products to enhance its own software.