Oh, go on then
Back in April 2009, database giant Oracle bid for computing infrastructure company Sun Microsystems, with software assets such as Java and the open source database MySQL considered to be the primary interests for Oracle.
The problem was that Oracle has bought a lot of other enterprise software companies in its time - such as Siebel and PeopleSoft - and the acquisition of the biggest open source database made a lot of people nervous. Not least the European Commission, which isn't known for its reticence in tackling US technology giants it considers to be acting in an anti-competitive way.
So the EC decided to look into the proposed acquisition, especially with a view to investigating how competition in the European database market bay be affected by Oracle owning MySQL. This prompted Oracle to offer a number of concessions, in which it promised to play nice with MySQL, and after further deliberation, the EC has decided green light the acquisition.
"I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalise important assets and create new and innovative products," said competition commissioner Neelie Kroes.
The study concluded that the European database market is dominated by Oracle, IBM and Microaoft, and that the three of them are likely to keep each other honest. While the open-source nature of MySQL makes it a special case, the EC reckons the presence of PostgreSQL provides a viable alternative. It also reckoned future derivations of MySQL may, in future, compete with it.
Regarding Java, the EC reassured itself that Oracle would have no incentive to deny its competitors access to Java IP rights, as that would just result in the platform being abandoned, which would ultimately harm Oracle.
Oracle head honcho Larry Ellison will be detailing Oracle's cunning plan for Sun in a live webcast next Wednesday.
