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Senators Ask EC To Let Oracle-Sun Deal Go Through
An anonymous reader writes "The European Union has managed to do something that US Presidents often find difficult: to make 59 US Senators from both sides of the aisle agree on something. A group led by John Kerry (D) and Orrin Hatch (R) has sent a letter to the European Union, asking it to wrap up the investigation of the Oracle-Sun merger and let the deal go through. Interestingly, the letter emphasizes the damage the delay and uncertainty are doing to Sun." The article paraphrases a Gartner analyst, who points out that the Senators' letter "comes from a US point of view and doesn't take into account how the EU operates."
From TFA:
"The DoJ runs on completely different competition rules than the EU," he said. "The DoJ looks at where there is harm to consumers. Their decision is businesses can look after themselves. The EU is more likely to be protective of competitors. They believe trade is better with more small competitors."
I am glad I am not the only one believing that... ;-)))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Do they happen to own shares in Sun by any chance?
SAP 1 Oracle 0
Ah, what the heck they said it much better than I ever would. The fake French accent only adds to the hilarity.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Although the US assumes everybody will do when they say on pain of being the next military target that's not the way it works out in reality.
The EU bureaucrats serve themselves.
For starters: This is not a clever approach to deal with the European commision. Oracle could sell MySQL and there would be no problem at all. But no, ol' Larry decided to get confrontational.
Further, the EU Commissions role is to ensure a competitive, fair and transparent market and to protect the consumer from abuse not to ensure Suns or Oracles profit, as the letter appears to imply.
Thanks for trying, but no cigar for you senator dudes.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
"managed to do something that US Presidents often find difficult: to make 59 US Senators from both sides of the aisle agree on something."
The lobbists agree => the senators agree.
Why is the EC holding this up? There are no legitimate concerns...MySQL is OSS, so let it be.
I can't help but feel the EC is trying to set an example, at the expense of actually doing the correct thing.
The EU is asking Oracle to prove a negative.
They're just fucking with the evil US.
IMHO the EU has a fairly limited view on data storage, the biggest challenge Oracle will face in the next 10 years is answering the question: why do we need a relational database to store our data? I find developing with Java / Hibernate against a relational database very time consuming and was it not that I invested so much time and effort in learning these technologies I would drop them straight away and explore alternatives. The fact that Oracle will add another SQL database to their product range doesn't change this fact that much at all. What I'm trying to say here is that the European Commission doesn't seem to understand that the competition will come from a completely different direction. And keeping the different database brands separate doesn't matter that much.
Because any criticism of the EU must be a troll....
They were set up to become an open source Apple if they wanted to be, and expand their offerings outside enterprise/business, just as an addition. Hardware and open solaris. They just needed some electronic gadgets to get consumer awareness going.
The EC has to stop interfering in things it does not understand.
First the ridiculous Microsoft case, and now this?
The easiest way to stop the EC from interfering is by not selling your products on the European market. ...)
Use our market, obey our rules. Simply put. (It's a bit like the old American saying about 'eating cakes'
The US sold it's wold wide credibility and good will for no-bid contracts in Iraq.
Actually that's not fair. A few politicians sold America's Good Will for 10 pieces of silver and huge profit margins for a few military contractors.
The US got overwhelming debt and a loss in international standing out of it.
The sun/oracle merger would not violate any rules. It's just that the EC does not like the idea of it.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
A US president has never convinced 59 US senators for one very obvious reason
Lets see if I got this right:
- The legislators of the 2nd largest western economy, pushed by lobbyists and in order to further the economic gains of companies based in their economic zone try to interfere in the internal affairs of the top largest western economy.
Sure, that's bound to work.
It's just as likely succeed as it would be if members of the European Parliament where trying to influence the US competition authorities with regards to European companies that have activities in US soil.
It's very simple, if Oracle wants to sell in the European markets they have to obey the European fair-competition rules. If they don't like them they can leave the market. In the same way, if any European company wants to sell in the US market they have to obey the US fair-competition rules or leave the market.
Honestly, Oracle having the legislators of a sovereign nation trying to influence the due process in an totally different economic and political block might very well be construed as an insult and have the opposite effect of what they intend.
What's next, will we have the People's Assembly of China send a letter to the European Commission saying "You guys over-reacted on the whole toxic paint on child's toys thing" ???
This is nothing more than the EU protecting a European company from stiffer competition.
Selection bias. When the EC recently ordered the breakup of two of the world's largest financial institutions (one of which was the largest in the world), you didn't hear about it, because they are based in the Netherlands and the UK and don't make gadgets. As such it's not news that's relevant to slashdot or any other American media, or so you will never hear about it.
The same story with european grocery giants, beer giants, engineering giants and petroleum companies that have been investigated or sanctioned by the EC. By definition, you will never hear about it unless the target is a multinational based in the US, because you have no reason to read foreign media.
I actually do think the EC anti trust office has overused its power under the current commissioner, especially when it comes to dismantling banks, but there is no evidence for any bias based on countries; the harshest measures have been against European companies.
Because there are tons of vested interests. SAP is based in the EU, so there's the possibility they're lobbying the EC on this one. One assumes that Oracle / Sun are lobbying US senators (and politicians in the EU for that matter?). The EU, as the article points out, works under different rules and with a different viewpoint - Oracle and Sun agreed to be bound by local laws when they entered the European markets. The EU probably has a political interest in seeming to stand up to the US, though you'd hope the regulators wouldn't be swayed into unprofessional behaviour by that. The US has an interest in avoiding a precedent where the EU has power over one of their companies. Sun and Oracle are probably trying to dodge awkward questions and hope for the EU to cave. Really, there's no reason to believe 100% that anyone is acting entirely in good faith here, especially given we don't have access to all the information.
We're seeing an interesting consequence of the increasingly interconnected world, though, in that we're reaping business advantages from setting up shop in multiple large markets but in turn companies are then subject to multiple jurisdictions regardless of their country of origin. It seems like the EU and US regulators working together on a decision might be more appropriate, given neither of them has absolute authority to give the go ahead. A co-operative solution to regulation decisions would make a certain amount of sense since it's de facto what we have now. It's surely in nobody's interests for the decision to be left hanging.
LOL French fries are Belgian :p
But yes, this is a another situation where I'd like our senators to SHUT UP.
If the EU wants to delay a decent company being swallowed by one that pisses me off daily, that's FINE.
Yes, I know it only delays the inevitable. But Sun becomes worth less to Oracle every day this gets delayed. AND I'M OK WITH THAT.
I would tell the EU to pound sand. If they want to put the kabash on this, I would tell the EU that I will close every EU based office and stop selling my products to the EU
or
they can let the deal go through.
Take your pick. My bet would be that within 90 days EU businesses would be putting their own pressure on the EU to allow them to continue to purchase Sun/Oracle products.
What the hell does a government think they are doing controlling a PUBLIC company? You want our products? Buy them. You don't want us to participate with your businesses? See ya.
This is the difference between the capitalist based US and the liberal/communist mentality of the EU. The fact that the current US administration isn't backing the senators trying to tell the EU to let this deal goes through only underscores the liberal/communist direction of this administration. They think the government should be able to tell a business how they should do business. This may be true to a point (you have to make safe products that don't kill people) but they should not be able to to prevent two companies merging because of a freeware software package. MYSQL is OSS. What more do they want?
if the Euro Parliament sent a missive saying "get off the pot and approve this business deal."
That's interesting... I wonder how the US would comply should a couple EU politicians send a letter "asking it to" wrap something up in its favour.
Doesn't matter - the act was still a petty attack on the French.
The EU is the reason I never bothered to code an SQL server or found a multinational hardware company from scratch. Mine would've been the coolest too, were it not for the EU. Stupid EU! Ruined my life....
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Oracle+Sun doesn't make sense from a hardware point of view
Imo, Cisco+Sun doesn't make sense from a software point of view (mysql, java, openoffice, netbeans, etc).
Reply to That ||
Oracle aside, approving this deal means giving McNealy and Schwartz a huge cash bonus for taking a company with no debt and large amounts of cash on hand and destroying it. Something just stinks about the whole prospect IMHO. Also, if this deal DOES go through, I look for it to be the root cause of the future death of Oracle.
There is a USian collective consciousness. There is no European collective consciousness.
In your city, as in any city in the USA, lots of people read USA Today, watch Fox news and follow the NFL. Maybe you don't, but you could - your national media cover an agenda that matters to you.
No-one in Poland read Le Monde. No-one in Prague read The Sun. The show Livvagterne just won an Emmy, yet 95% of Europeans have never seen it, and never will. There is no European collective consciousness. And no amount of Brussels legislation or presidencies is going to change that.
IMO this is the one major democratic problem that the EU has. We have excellent democratic institutions, but we lack the common ground to use them right.
Everything they do is governed by laws.
They have no reason to own or support it except to kill it. This is exactly why the EU is blocking the deal, it makes sense to stop Oracle's purchase of Sun.
Dear US senators,
Please lets us do our fucking business, and you do your fucking business for once of controlling your banks so they don't blow up the world economy, for the Xth time. We all know what happened last time the US argued for LESS government oversight.
With kind regards,
The EU.
P.S. Isn't it about time you paid of your debt.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
i wish i had mod points for you.
sun was far from dead. they had $2 BILLION dollars in the bank and like you said no debt. as a maker of high-end servers, they were hit especially hard by the recession. however, assuming the recession ends in the next couple of years they were in good shape to weather the storm. they are innovative, and to a large degree unique in their outlook on open source software. granted, they probably needed a hard hitting re-org to get their hardware division profitable.
the entire deal is about the big investors in sun cutting their losses, nothing more. it went through because sun has an inept, disinterested CEO that has showed no interest (or maybe ability) to make the right moves over the past years.
there is intrinsic value to sun as a company. it's a tax payer and an employer for 25k bodies world wide. it's the largest supporter and contributor to open source software. this deal deal is good, in the short term, for investors. in all other respects it stinks.
The United States has no right to interfere in the internal political affairs of Europe.
Why can't Americans realise that they are a weak, incompetent, semi-third world, semi-theocratic, corporate / military state.
No sane European aspires to any of the corrupt ideas of the US regime. Just by attempting to interfere, in the non-politicised due process of more democratic countries, the United States regime is once again attacking democracy for the benefit of their corporate puppet masters.
got a reciept for the rental of 59 Senators. Why else would they all help a man who is a perennial favorite in the 'Worlds' Worst Human' contest?
How is this different from Chrysler/Fiat.... or more close to [EU] home: Porsche-VW (eventually the biggest company in the world?)...
All the EU is doing to blocking this to preserve SAP--which we use here and IMO... is subpar.
Tools of the lobbyists.
Yours In Yasnogorsk,
Kilgore Trout
Not feasible. There's no way Oracle, a company that sells to multibillion dollar multinationals, would be ABLE to avoid Europe. It's just not possible.
Seriously letting a company die off because it means Oracle will have access to a database that everyone has access to thanks to it being open source is just beyond fucking ignorant.
Perhaps this is a long overdue payback to IBM for helping the Nazis
Last time I checked, these are American companies. Just go ahead and do the merger already. Tell the EU where to get off. You don't have to do business with the EU, they can go without. Cut them off. See how they like that. :P
It wasn't even a good name either. They should have renamed french fries to something more appealing, like titty fries or coke & whores fries.
Sun was dead the minute that Jonathan "look, I'm a geek--I have a ponytail too!" Schwartz took it over. He has consistently and publicly done everything in his power to run down the stock price, in order to make it a tempting buyout option. A while ago, Sun had enough free cash on hand to take the company private again, and Schwartz refused to do so. "We're looking for a buyer" was the essence of his message. It has convinced me that he's not incompetent, as it widely believed, but ruthlessly competent at making a profit by destroying his own company.
I still don't understand how McNealy fits into it anymore. He's already stupidly rich, and it seems counter-intuitive for him to want to run his own company into the ground for the sake of getting richer, but who knows? He doesn't seem to be trying to save them.
I'd love to see Oracle spin off MySQL, complete the purchase, and then kick these two to the curb without a single extra penny. Fire them for non-performance, and threaten enormous lawsuits if they don't just get the hell out.
But that's just me, and I LIKE the colour of sky in my fantasy world!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Schwartz has disappeared into thin air. Has ANYONE seen him in the last few months? No sign of him at JavaOne, or anywhere else. What the hell happened to him?
I don't know too many of the details here, but I'm glad someone is buying Sun. I'd heard rumors of a Sun/IBM merger a while back, and seen the signs that Sun was struggling financially. I think that an Oracle/Sun merger creates a better balance of power in the IT industry. Sun has done many good things for the Open Source community, including StarOffice, a truly open sourced Java, and OpenSolaris. However, unlike IBM who has prospered despite their many public contributions, Sun has suffered lately. There's a growing trend away from Java and toward .NET, as well as replacing old Unix servers running Solaris with new Intel machines running Windows Server.
Oracle throwing it's weight behind Sun technologies will reverse the trend, making Java applications popular again. I think Java is the superior solution. Not only available long before .NET, it was ripped off poorly by Microsoft (as usual) and marketing took care of the idiots making the decisions. It won't be long before Oracle creates a WebForms application based on the J2EE framework. Unlike .NET, however, the generated code can be hand-crafted to communicate with those old Unix boxes that won't be/haven't yet been replaced. J2EE is the superior web framework because its design incorporates a heterogeneous network, whereas Microsoft technologies are a monolith where you are unable to replace any one piece because Microsoft won't support other technologies.
Since many companies haven't yet transitioned to the really expensive .NET technologies, this merger will prevent many more idiots from choosing .NET just because it's sexy. I'd say now that you can't really go wrong buying IBM, Sun and Oracle in whatever quantities suits your organization. Just stay away from that Microsoft shit.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
The day they announced the Oracle buyout, his blog was pulled off of the front page of blogs.sun.com. You can still get to it, but he's only had one post since then, and it was about how the Java Store (to be officially announced at JavaOne) will be the greatest thing in the history of computing.
I suspect he's lying as low as possible, to avoid irritating the EU further.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Can you imagine the shit storm if European politicians told the American government how to do business. The average American poster would be so butthurt that someone would dare comment on their perfect world.
I don't know what he has to say,
It makes no difference anyway,
Whatever it is, I'm against it...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I suppose they're not able to avoid the EC either then... And I don't think that's such a bad thing.
The EC has to stop interfering in things it does not understand.
No it doesn't. Companies that do business in the EU have to obey the rules there or leave the largest market in the world. That's not a tough choice even if companies sometimes cry over it.