Report: Oracle not yielding to EU with Sun buy

Oracle is taking a hard line in dealing with European Union objections to its planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems, according to a Financial Times report Tuesday.

EU antitrust regulators are concerned that Oracle, which has a large business in proprietary software, won't be a good home for Sun's open-source MySQL database business. According to the report, Oracle is unyielding, offering no concessions to deal with the EU's concerns.

That stance could lead the regulators to issue a formal complaint objecting to the deal, and that move could occur within days, according unnamed sources in the story. Neither the EU or Oracle commented for the story.

MySQL's former chief executive, Marten Mickos, has urged the EU to approve the acquisition, but cofounder Monty Widenius has objected. Sun shareholders and the U.S. Justice Department have approved the deal.

[abcd9009]

Looks like Oracle has learned nothing from Microsoft on dealing with the EU.

[slickuser]

screw the filthy EU. Oracle, don't yield!

[bicparker]

Or it could be that Oracle learned a great deal from Microsoft on how not to deal with the EU. Perhaps they that taking a harder stance than MS did may, in the worst case, end up with no worse results than they are facing now. So there is really more of a potential upside by playing hardball.

[dhavleak]

Well, Oracle will just look at their own case and decide on how to proceed. MS's case has no bearing on this.

One common item though -- as usual the EU simply doesn't have a leg to stand on.

MySQL is an open source product. It's source code belongs to the community at large -- not to Sun Microsystems. It certainly won't belong to Oracle after the merger. Sun is merely MySQLs biggest backer.

For customers that currently get MySQL support from Sun - they should be able to get it from Oracle once the merger is completed. If Oracle discontinues support for MySQL -- customers can buy that support from elsewhere (cue the Open Source support model).

Let's assume the very worst. Oracle takes over Sun. The majority of expertise on MySQL works for Sun, and gets diverted to other projects. Companies running MySQL need support but they can no longer get it from Sun/Oracle -- and the expertise at this point does not exist outside of Sun/Oracle. Well -- guess what -- it's Open Source code! Pay somebody (some individual / company / entity) to go over the source code and develop that expertise.

It's simply a case of the classical strengths people refer to when they talk about open source. The EU has been making a lot of noise about increasing it's use of open source s/w and reducing it's reliance on proprietary s/w for these very reasons. Either they believe their own logic for that shift - or they are hypocrites. The choice is theirs. Oracle has an airtight case.

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

The EU has too much power. regulation should stop somewhere. has to be a balance.

[Super2online]

The EU is drunk with power. You certainly can't expect them to throttle down when they have discoverd one of the most lucrative methods of robbing corporation in the world can you?

[dhavleak]

Not only does the EU's competition committee have too much power -- they also have no oversight. The Commissioner for the committee has the final word on these matters. All appeals go to the exact person who made the ruling (the commissioner). The commissioner has discretion to select which cases to look into. That's just way too much power and way too little oversight.

And you know what they say about absolute power....

[dennisheadley]

I really don't understand why this matters anyway. If Oracle is a United States based corporation and Sun is a US based corporation then they should just go ahead with the merger and be done. the EU should not have any say in it at all. I don't care if they do business internationally.

Does the Justice Department get a say in whether for example if BMW and Volkswagen were to merge, even though they do business here and sell their products here? I've yet to see an article about the Justice Department holding up any EU company merging with another EU company.

[Gold_Storm_Mac]

the U.S. economy is very free and would not cause a disruption like this even with 2 U.S. companies. The EU would be able to stop the European parts of this company since the EU has say over what business is done in their economic territory. This is a European problem and not a North American one.

[BruinGuy]

This matters a lot. The leader in the market for applications is SAP. Oracle with Oracle Apps and JD Edwards apps is SAP's biggest competitor. Where is SAP headquartered? Germany.

Anything that makes Oracle stronger is competition for the EU's SAP. This is a big battle and look for the EU to make Oracle's life miserable.

[dennisheadley]

If they did just go ahead and merge, the most I can see the EU doing is tell them they can no longer have a presence in EU countries (Offices, staff etc.) or sell products and services.

Oracles customers in those countries would raise hell with the EU if they could not get any support services from Oracle and they would probably sue the EU for the cost of switching to another platform if no Oracle products were allowed to be sold in the EU.

On the other hand, none of those companies would win a case against Oracle for no longer supporting them, they would have the whole "the EU said we couldn't support you even if we wanted to" defense. They would have to sue Oracle in the US and I can't see a judge siding with anyone over something that is out of Oracles hands.

[gfsdfge]

So, none of you care that the biggest proprietary database company in the world is going to buy the company with the largest open source database in the world?

[dennisheadley]

Not at all. From everything I have read about this story from the beginning and even straight from the people that were running MySQL prior to Sun's purchase and after it, they do not compete in the same markets. The big players that use Oracle would never use MySQL under any means.

[jbuberel]

Denis is right - MySQL is open source. It doesn't matter who owns it. If Oracle decides to abandon the project, there are plenty of other people out there who will pick up the source, fork it, and start the project up again. Oracle cannot kill MySQL. It may choose to no longer pay salaries to people who work on it, but that is the worst they could do.

[pokiri]

Does the socialist EU care ( other than the Sun EU work force ) about 1000s of jobs cut at Sun ?
.

[tommytrble]

I think Oracle has to be careful. The EU can cause issues for future sales in the EU territory and those sales could go to SAP instead. Some organization should stop the merger due to MySQL. Oracle is just protecting their cash cow. MySQL will cause issues for the company in the next few years.

[lmasanti]

quote from Wikipedia:
"MySQL AB (founded 1995, acquired by Sun Microsystems 2008) was a software company. MySQL AB is the creator of MySQL, a relational database management system, as well as related products such as MySQL Cluster. The company is dually headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden and Cupertino, California, USA with offices in other..."

I think this is all about revenge.
MySQL AB "was" born in Sweden (a.k.a. Europw) and bought by Sun (a.k.a. United States).
Now, they want to block the new deal because they could not do anything before.

(Disclaimer: I was born in Argentina)

[jmcgraw54]

It was Ellison who set European approval as a condition of the merger. I'm not sure what is gained by this merger (expect for Sun shareholders and the corporate officers). It's purely in Oracle's interest to get rid of MySql or sabotage it as much as possible. Every user that doesn't use MySql is another potential Oracle user. Sun did a recent study (2008 before the merger) and found that quite a high percentage of Oracle users were interested in moving to MySql. I use MySql for my clients and would hate to see it go away as an option. Their other open source software is not available through the GPL.

[jbuberel]

The cynic in me thinks that this is a ploy by Oracle to further drive down the cost of the acquisition. The longer this phase is dragged out, the lower Sun's value will fall. And I am guessing that the merge contract has provisions in it for changes in the open market valuation of Sun - the farther it falls, the lower the price, the less Oracle will have to pay.

Smart move, probably.

[felgercarbnaysay]

The EU is costing both Europe and the US jobs. They are as delusional as Schwartz if they think MySQL is a serious competitor to Oracle. What about DB/2? Microsoft SQLserver? These freetard antics are just a smoke screen. SAP and IBM are pulling the strings here. All this FUD-mongering does is costing people their jobs. As a US citizen, I feel our sovreignty is being violated. The EU can go to hell IMHO.

[pokiri]

EU is smart and tough .
Larry Ellison is smart and tough.
Poor Sun it was already ailing, now the status like a big rock from heaven fell
on a sinking ship.

Folks, Oracle and EU can play their hard ball and make Sun an empty shell ( it was already
on decline ).

[unknown unknown]

It's about time the EU issued a decision and quite sitting on their thumbs.

[SpiritWater]

I'd prefer that MySQL be spun-off but I believe if the shareholders approved the buy then the EU should move out of the way. The EU has no grounds for disapproving this purchase.

[fgsdfgdsfgdsfg]

I agree, screw the EU and push ahead. What are they going to do. Fine you a percentage of the profits you make on the open source MySQL... give me a break.

[gladwin88]

Dear friends ,

Oracle ceo has murdered mr.solomon chairman

and david (solomon father ) of

rat company at oct 2009.

he also murdered daniel son

solomon.

It is harm to java /j2ee professional also.

So we don't support in any bussiness matters.


---- Gladwin (ceo of intergerated systems)

[arnold9999]

Dear IT professional,

Oracle company database company did not know much about java latest technologies..

Java language is an ocean. Oracle ceo did not know about the

Java latest technologies.

Oracle idea want to convert oracle professional to java professional.

java professional work hard for 5 years and become a project leader.

when oracle buy sun microsystems will also convert oracle professional to

java/j2ee professional. This is the greatest disadvantage.

Oracle buy mysql will make mysql not a open source software.

"We should not accept rich person like oracle ceo having

many money"

Next thing is Gladwin ceo of integerated systems had already said

oracle ceo has commited 3 murders ; a murder should not

able to do business.

Ibm company not best in latest technologies of java.

So both IBM and Oracle company must be rejected.

BY

Arnold (Project manager of integerated systems)