Thursday, January 21, 2010

Oracle-Sun Deal Gets Green Light

TODAY: The European Commission today cleared Oracle's $7.4 billion agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems, paving the way for the two companies to close the deal.

Oracle is free to combine with Sun without any restrictions, meaning it does not have to spin off MySQL, Sun's open-source database that was the primary subject of the EC's review.

"Although MySQL and Oracle compete in certain parts of the database market, they are not close competitors in others, such as the high-end segment," the EC launched last year by MySQL founder Monty Widenius. "Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalize important assets and create new and innovative products," EC competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, said in a statement.

Rivals such as IBM, VMware, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, have started preparing for a combined Oracle and Sun as a much larger competitor bringing together their respective hardware and software assets. Many have speculated the Oracle-Sun combination was among several reasons for last week's a MySQL migration tool for its SQL Server database.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison next Wednesday will outline the merged company's strategy during a five-hour presentation at its Redwood Shores, Calif. headquarters

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