Software maker Oracle Corp , which is near to closing its $7 billion acquisition of computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc , plans to hire 2,000 sales and engineering employees, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The new hires will outnumber the cuts Oracle is making in Sun's head count, the Journal said, citing an interview with Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison.

Separately, in an interview with the New York Times, Ellison said he expected Sun's chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, to resign and hoped that Scott McNealy, Sun's co-founder and chairman, would stay on at Oracle, although his title and duties were not clear.

Oracle plans to focus on selling computer systems that combine hardware and software, the Journal said, with Ellison saying that the company will announce two such systems in the next year.

The paper said Ellison declined to provide details, except to say he expected systems that combine hardware and software to become a multibillion-dollar market.

A spokeswoman for Oracle, which plans to unveil its strategy for Sun publicly on Wednesday, was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Shailesh Kuber in Bangalore and Martinne Geller in New York; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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