San Francisco  - Sun Microsystems posted a sharp drop in revenue alongside widening losses Tuesday in what may be its last quarter as an independent company.

The enterprise server company, which has agreed to sell itself to Oracle for 7.4 billion dollars, had a net loss of 201 million dollars in its fiscal third quarter compared to a 34-million-dollar loss in the same period last year.

Reflecting the impact of the global recession and increased competition, the Silicon Valley company said that its revenues tumbled to 2.6 billion dollars, down 20 per cent from 3.27 billion dollars a year ago.