News
        
        Oracle-Sun Deal Gets Green Light
        
        
        
			- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- January 21, 2010
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 said  in a statement. Even if Oracle were to impede the future of MySQL, there  are viable open-source database alternatives, such as PostgreSQL, the EC noted,  adding that so-called "forks" in the code-base of MySQL will allow  for other open source alternatives.
One such alternative is the Open Database Alliance, 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 $250  million agreement between HP and Microsoft to work more closely on  developing next-generation data center technology. Also last week, Microsoft  began offering 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.
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
            
        
        
                
                    About the Author
                    
                
                    
                    Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.