EC Formally Objects To Oracle's Purchase of Sun

eldavojohn writes "The EC has presented Oracle and Sun with a statement of objections. Despite the promotion of former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos, the statement seems to focus entirely on what many have feared: MySQL vs. Oracle databases. From Sun's 8-K SEC filing: 'The Statement of Objections sets out the Commission's preliminary assessment regarding, and is limited to, the combination of Sun's open source MySQL database product with Oracle's enterprise database products and its potential negative effects on competition in the market for database products.' The EU and the EC are getting a rep for disagreeing with US counterparts." On Monday afternoon the DoJ reiterated its support for the deal. Matthew Aslett has a helpful timeline of the action from the EC.

Comments

I Object!

[Geoffrey.landis]

Well, I'd object to their purchasing the sun as well!!

Re:Okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

European Commies

Re:Okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

The EC is.. who now?

EC is European Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission

Why does Oracle need MySQL anyway?

[rsborg]

Just spin it off, keep a small interest that will prevent the spun-off unit from going rogue, and claim victory.

I seriously don't see why Oracle needs MySQL.

Re:Why does Oracle need MySQL anyway?

[Znork]

I seriously don't see why Oracle needs MySQL.

Frankly, Ellisons refusal to spin it off is the strongest indication that the purpose of acquiring MySQL as part of the deal is anti-competitive. As you say, it's not as if Oracle really needs it, so it shouldn't be this much of an issue.

Re:Why does Oracle need MySQL anyway?

[NoYob]

I seriously don't see why Oracle needs MySQL.

Product mix - as the marketing guys call it. MySQL has a market that Oracle doesn't. How many folks use Oracle as their back end for their websites? Now they have products that cover more of the market for RDMSs; which I believe, makes them the leader, but by no means able to control the market as the EC fears.

I disagree

[stephanruby]

Oracle is marketed as an high-end database product/set of services. MySql is a low-end one (and please, don't misinterpret this as shot against it). Now, I'm not saying that you won't find companies replacing their Oracle database with a MySql one, but those are very few and far between. Between Oracle and MySql, there are actually quite of slew of decent alternatives (both proprietary and open source).

Re:I disagree

[Ukab the Great]

I think Oracle's target market are the web 2.0 cowboys who originally went with MySQL, grew up and realized they needed something more robust, and are currently tied to MySQL because those other alternatives would break their extremely MySQL-specific code. If Oracle can provide a flawless backwards compatibility layer for MySQL, they'd have an edge over the other guys.

Re:Okay...

[mwvdlee]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC

Effectively, it's the EU.

Population of EU is about 500 million vs. 308 million for the USA, so the EC is kinda significant.

Re:F the EC

[int69h]

Actually they're multinational companies, and Oracle stands to lose a fair chunk of change if they can't do business in EU countries. Not that I agree with this retarded group's findings. The whole "Can't sustain development without being able to sell proprietary licenses" is bunk. Plenty of opensource projects thrive without being able to sell proprietary licenses. Linux springs to mind.

A Rep?

[theillien]

According to the article the last time the EU/EC contravened a takeover was when they denied General Electric's takeover of Honeywell in 2001. I'd hardly call two denials in a decade a reputation for disagreeing with the US on these matters.

Re:Oracle's reasons *are* monopolistic!

[PCM2]

Let's see...MySQL brings in ~50M a year, Sun is losing 100M a month. Makes no sense why Oracle would want to delay, except for monopolistic reasons.

Last I heard, Oracle doesn't want to delay. It's the European Commission that wants to delay Oracle.

As for "monopolistic reasons": Between IBM, Microsoft, Teradata, PostgreSQL, etc, how can Oracle possibly be said to have a monopoly on databases?

You seem to be suggesting that Oracle wants to destroy the market for MySQL. As the largest database vendor in the world, how does it benefit Oracle to destroy any market for databases, however large or small?

And that's assuming it's even possible for Oracle to do what you suggest. Even if the goal is merely to destroy the market for low-cost databases, I don't see how Oracle could do that. There is no shortage of low-cost (free) alternatives to MySQL -- PostgreSQL, Firebird, SQLite, the list goes on.

If Oracle doesn't immediately cave in to the European Commission, have you considered the possibility that it might be because Oracle plans to grow the MySQL market, and that even at $100 million/month, it has not yet sacrificed enough profit to make up for all the money it plans to make from MySQL in the coming years?

Re:Good Business

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think MySQL is any threat to Oracle, then you don't understand anything about the commercial database market.

Re:F the EC

[Tom]

Well, standing up to badly behaved American companies.

Try some research before you post nationalistic crap like that. The EC has fined european companies in the billions range for violations of anti-corruption laws, does the same anti-trust checks on european companies and so on.

Wake up. 50 years ago, the US had the moral high ground on the rest of the world, but you can't go downhill forever without losing it.

Re:Okay...

[Jesus_666]

You're right. If we go by body mass, one European (~70 kg) makes about 1/4th of an American. But hey, by that same metric, the USA have about the same population as China!