Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Jan. 22, 2010

After more than nine long months of negotiations and complex hearings, the European Commission has finally approved the Oracle-Sun Microsystems merger.

This officially gives Oracle the green light to finally acquire Sun Microsystems in a transaction valued at over $7.06 billion in cash and stock.

Neelie Kroes, the European antitrust commissioner says "we are now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems has the potential to revitalize important IT assets and create new and innovative products."

The EC's approval, which faced a January 29 deadline, comes after more than nine months of limbo during which the Commission expressed skepticism about the antitrust aspects of the proposed deal, first announced in April 2009.

Worries that Oracle's ownership of the MySQL software would pose a competitive threat in the open source database market prompted the European regulators to launch an in-depth investigation last September. Specifically, the Commission feared that MySQL's role as a leading open-source database might be jeopardized if Oracle, a software powerhouse built on its proprietary database, took ownership.

In fully approving the transaction, the EC cited a number of factors that seemed to ease its mind.

Oracle has an event planned for Jan. 27 that is open to customers, partners, press and even market analysts, in which CEO Larry Ellison and other executives from both Oracle and Sun will discuss their long-term strategy for smoothly integrating the two companies together and their respective products.

The EC said it found that "although MySQL and Oracle compete in certain parts of the same database market, they are not really close competitors in others, such as the high-end segment, which Oracle clearly has an edge over open source MySQL."

The European Commission, which is the regulatory arm of the European Union, also felt that even if Oracle were to limit MySQL's position as an open-source product, other open-source databases could rise to fill the void. In its investigation, the European regulators named the open-source database PostgreSQL, considered by many to be a viable alternative to MySQL.

They also found that other forks of the MySQL code could sprout quickly enough to provide even more competition to Oracle if necessary.

Additionally, the Commission was more reassured by a series of pledges made by Oracle last December, in which the company promised to support and develop the MySQL database under an open-source license.

Oracle says it is committed to invest more on research anf development, maintain healthy relations with third-party open source developers and launch advisory boards to help better guide the product's future.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Source: Oracle.

All logos, trade marks or service marks on this website are the property of their respective companies or owners.

ADVERTISERS:
Linux News Today.org is read by over 450,000 people involved in the field of Linux application development, professional Web hosting services, Linux security, Linux Web development, etc. Inquire about our reasonable advertising rates on our news website. One of our advertising representatives will be in touch with you. Simply email us to learn about our ad rates and how we can help drive relevant traffic to your website. Advertising space is limited.