The Hindu Business Line : EC objects to Sun-Oracle deal

NEW YORK: The European Commission has objected to Oracle Corporation’s proposed $7.4-billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems, saying that the deal could threat competition in the market.

The statement of objections was regarding the combination of Sun’s open source MySQL database product with Oracle’s enterprise database products and its potential negative impact on competition in the market, Sun Microsystems said in a filing to the the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

A Statement of Objections is a preparatory document that does not prejudge the European Commission’s final decision.

Any final decision by the Commission is subject to appeal to the European Court of First Instance.

Meanwhile, Oracle in a statement said: “The transaction does not threaten to reduce competition in the slightest, including in the database market. The Commission’s Statement of Objections reveal a profound misunderstanding of both database competition a nd open source dynamics.’’

As per Oracle the database market is intensely competitive with at least eight strong players, including IBM, Microsoft, Sybase and three distinct open source vendors.

“There is no basis in European law for objecting to a merger of two among eight firms selling differentiated products. Mergers like this occur regularly and have not been prohibited by United States or European regulators in decades,’’ the Oracle stateme nt added. — PTI

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