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According to Reuters, the European Commission has scheduled a Dec. 10 hearing for Oracle to make its case for acquiring Sun Microsystems. On one level, the move seems a bit odd given that Oracle recently asked for and received an extension from the EU to “further develop its arguments” in response to the commission’s anti-competitive concerns involving Oracle’s plans to snap up the commercial version of MySQL from Sun. Oracle was granted an extension from Jan. 19 to Jan. 27.
Then again, perhaps the EC is responding to pleas from the Independent Oracle Users Group and 59 U.S. senators to speed up its review of the deal while thousands of Sun-related jobs hang in the balance. One blogger, InformationWeek’s Bob Evans, points to how EC Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes is “armpit-deep in political gamesmanship” and has no intention of giving Oracle “a fair shake.”
Other bloggers have suggested that Kroes and her crew have been stalling on the Oracle/Sun deal in order to benefit Oracle’s European rivals. Hmmm…other than SAP, who exactly are Oracle’s ‘European’ rivals? Dassault Systemes? Nah, different market. The Sage Group plc and Software AG? To some extent.
Meanwhile, the UK User Group which claims to have 1,500+ organizations as members and represent more than 4% of Oracle’s global revenues, has written a letter to Kroes supporting Oracle’s plans to acquire Sun. In the letter, user group chairman Ronan Miles tells Kroes that “uncertainty over the future of Java risks our member’s investments in both Oracle technologies (which rely significantly on Java in current versions) and in developed applications.” Miles also expresses the group’s concerns over Sun’s financial problems on behalf of those members whose organizations have invested in Sun hardware and software.
Miles goes on to state how MySQL “should not be regarded as a serious competitor” to Oracle’s proprietary database technologies. He also points out that Oracle has a “proven track record in preserving customer investments in technologies/applications that Oracle has acquired,” including Rdb, IRI Express and The Applications Unlimited strategy for PeopleSoft, Siebel, J.D. Edwards, etc.
I’ve maintained all along that the crown jewel for Oracle in the Sun deal is Java. And, sure, there’s a business case for Oracle to have its own hardware platform to position its software products, particularly as technology titans like IBM, HP and Cisco continue to snap up smaller niche companies and position themselves as one-stop providers of technologies and services.
But it’s MySQL that’s Oracle’s albatross in the Sun deal. Larry Ellison has made it clear that he has no intention of spinning off MySQL to satisfy European regulators. Whether the EC moves quickly on a decision following Oracle’s Dec. 10 presentation remains to be seen. European regulators already have an out: regardless of what transpires in the Dec. 10 meeting, EC officials can blame the approaching holidays as a conflict for making a decision on the Sun deal and push it off until January.
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