BROOMFIELD - While many questions are left unanswered, the Sun Microsystems Inc. and Oracle Corp. marriage could mean more options for technology companies that are customers of one or the other.

Those options may come from increased competition in the technology market or from Sun/Oracle combined products.

"I don't see the negative impact at all," said Ryan Martens, co-founder and chief technology officer of Boulder-based Rally Software Development Corp.

Rally's application is built using Sun's Java platform and runs on Oracle's databases, so Martens said his company is looking forward to further integration. The $7.4 billion acquisition, which was finalized in late January, could mean Oracle selling Sun's hardware preinstalled with Oracle's software.

Rick Sturm, chief executive officer of Boulder-based Enterprise Management Associates Inc., an industry analyst firm, echoed that thought.

Though Martens said consumers will only buy combined products if it's cheaper than purchasing from separate companies as they do now.

Sturm said it's very likely Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) will at least attempt to sell a combined product, but it'll likely consolidate products, and employees, that overlap, too.

Though layoff numbers weren't disclosed, companywide, Oracle announced plans to hire 2,000 sales and engineering employees - which it said will outnumber the number of Sun cuts.

"Assuming that's the truth, I think that could be good for the Broomfield installation," said Wayne Citrin, Boulder-based JNBridge LLC's chief technology officer.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun operates its largest "green" data center in Broomfield as well as houses sales and support staff and data-storage engineers who help design storage option for customers. Locally, Oracle maintains a small office in Boulder, as well as locations in Denver and Colorado Springs.

Besides possible new hires at Sun's Broomfield campus, Sturm and Martens agree that Oracle's small Boulder office likely will move there to consolidate locations. Fortunately for local employees, much of the Sun (Nasdaq: JAVA) and Oracle employee overlap comes from locations outside the Boulder Valley.

Initially, Sturm thinks users will see a slowdown of product development and delivery because of Oracle's ego. He foresees them struggling with hardware manufacturing until the company accepts help from the expert in the relationship - Sun.

But once the two companies are fully combined, the marriage will rival companies like Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Development Co. LP (NYSE: HPQ).

Citrin thinks if Oracle can successfully integrate with Sun, which it has proven in other acquisitions, then the combined company could become a big player in the technology industry.

"I think it's good that IBM has competition in that space," he said.

Oracle expects to provide that competition.

"Sun's new SPARC Solaris system and Sun's new Exadata database machine both run the Oracle database faster than IBM's fastest computer," Larry Ellison, Oracle's chief executive officer, said in a December earnings statement. "We expect Sun to rapidly improve both its market share and margins."

Whether or not the company is concerned, IBM, which was first rumored to be in acquisition talks with Sun prior to the Oracle announcement in late April 2009, may now have a target on its back.

"I think Oracle knows what they're getting and takes it seriously," Citrin said.