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EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun
The EU Commission has issued a
press release
regarding Oracle's plans to acquire Sun.
"The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation under the EU Merger Regulation into the planned acquisition of US hardware and software vendor Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation, a US database and application software company. The Commissions initial market investigation indicated that the proposed acquisition would raise serious doubts as to its compatibility with the Single Market because of competition concerns on the market for databases. The decision to open an in-depth inquiry does not prejudge the final result of the investigation. The Commission now has 90 working days, until 19 January 2010, to take a final decision on whether the concentration would significantly impede effective competition within the European Economic Area (EEA) or a substantial part of it."
(Found on Groklaw).
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EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 3, 2009 21:54 UTC (Thu) by yann.morin.1998 (✭ supporter ✭, #54333) [Link]
I may sound ignorant, but why on Earth would the European Commission investigate on a _US_company_ acquiring another _US_company_?
That a US entity (such as DoJ) investigates, that's fine, that all in US. But why would a European entity? And how would it be able to veto the acquisition?
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 3, 2009 22:02 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link]
1) They do business in Europe.
2) They're totally free to avoid EU oversight by withdrawing from all European operations.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 3, 2009 22:17 UTC (Thu) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]
It's a funny thing, but, when you conduct business in a foreign country you have to abide by their rules.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 1:42 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]
> It's a funny thing, but, when you conduct business in a foreign country you have to abide by their rules.
That's why we really need a world government administered by multinational corps. This sovereignty crap is just too inefficient.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 6:12 UTC (Fri) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]
There is a grain of truth in that, insofar as if the EU takes months or years on this there won't be an awful lot of Sun left - it really needs to be sorted out swiftly, at whatever level.
Given the various development groups that are now working on MySQL I find it a bit difficult to see why the EU thinks it is in danger.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 8:03 UTC (Fri) by DennisJ (subscriber, #14700) [Link]
The non-GPL version is in danger.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 18:09 UTC (Fri) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link]
No. The continued contribution from a specific corporate sponsored entity to
the GPL'ed version is in danger.
The GPL'ed version that is out there will always be available under the GPL
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 5, 2009 12:22 UTC (Sat) by DennisJ (subscriber, #14700) [Link]
No? So it wouldn't be possible for Oracle to send letters to the customers of
the non-GPL version saying: "The MySQL product you have bought has reached end of life. If you need a supported product, your options include buying an Oracle license, or releasing your application under the GPL."?
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 12, 2009 7:55 UTC (Sat) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
In fact it's the GPL-ed version that is in danger. Original creators won't develop it it anymore, because they can't make money on it anymore - thanks to GPL, they can't do what they used to be and what Postgres folks do, which is having their own, closed versions with added features or performance.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 12, 2009 12:13 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Yeah. Similarly, Linux is in grave danger because it's GPLed. Nobody will
contribute features to it anymore.
Oh, wait.
(reality: 1. trasz: 0.)
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 12, 2009 12:39 UTC (Sat) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
Operating system is a completely different situation, because, for the most part, it's only a tool for selling hardware. For example, IBM can safely contribute code that makes it perform better on Z/Architecture, because noone other than IBM manufactures this kind of hardware, and nobody but their customers can take advantage of it. Large contributions not related to hardware support doesn't happen that often - for example, notice that, after four years since Sun released ZFS as open source, Linux is still stuck at the 20 year old LVM + filesystem model. On the graphics front, Linux and Xorg guys are still trying to mimic architecture introduced by Apple in OSX ten years ago. Most of the "new functionality" recently implemented by Linux - interrupt threads, for example - was available in other systems years ago as well - and even when it finally comes to Linux, it's often in some bastardized form (compare e.g. devmapper to GEOM, or Linux Security Modules to FreeBSD MAC). So yes, innovation doesn't really happen in Linux - and one could argue that it has something to do with the obligation to give away your code to your competitors, for free, so they can take it and sell the same thing you sell, only cheaper - because you had to invest your money in the code, not them.
Another argument may be recent (ok, not so recent anymore) change in IBM's approach to Linux - I remember IBM's Linux commercials few years ago on (iirc) CNN; now, IBM is back to pushing AIX instead, claiming that it performs better, has more features and is safer; they give Linux only to customers that really want it.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 11:48 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Well, that's a pretty good description of the EU (except that it doesn't cover the whole world).
Brussels is hardly a paragon of efficiency though (just look at the perennial fraud at very high levels and the ridiculous jaunts to and from Strasbourg all the time). Efficiency was never really its goal. Binding the EU members together so tightly that they'd never dare war on each other, but rather bicker in fancy conference rooms, was the goal. It seems to work pretty well.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 15:42 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
It's also a pretty good way for a relative small group of people to gain control over a entire continent. Some people are now able to do pretty much whatever they want while those governmental officials are bickering with each other and people's attention are tied up in petty things and how stupid USA is, and how it's American's fault. Yay government run media!
Have some decency, EU Posted Sep 5, 2009 9:55 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] And the worst thing is: we EU citizens are happy most of the time with their evil doings! They don't even make us mad except at select occasions! (Not like country and local governments where we get to complain a lot, all the time, and watch them like hawks.) That is pure evil genius.
Have some decency, EU Posted Sep 7, 2009 22:49 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Yes. That's because while the EU is the source of a lot of local laws,
most of what it does is *dead boring*. So obviously most people don't care about it, or at least aren't unhappy.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 8:24 UTC (Fri) by cate (subscriber, #1359) [Link]
Why should we trust US? See the Microsoft case On Bush era. ;-)
Anyway: US controls antitrust only within US market (and BTW antitrust is
Anyway it is not a veto, they give conditions (see Microsoft): if they have
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 4, 2009 0:01 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] I'm worried about the merger for other reasons. In the anti-swpat lobbying in the EU, out main corporate allies were Red Hat and Sun. If one of them disappears, that's a big loss.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 7, 2009 18:09 UTC (Mon) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]
How does Oracle buying Sun affect competition in the database arena? The commercial field is dominated by Oracle and Microsoft, and after the acquisition, it will be dominated by Oracle and Microsoft. I don't really see MySQL as a serious competitor of either. No offence to MySQL, I like it, but how much money does it really make compared to the big 2?
The article title is a bit inflamatory. They aren't investigating the acquisition, they are investigating the result of the acquisition happenning - they really can't block the acquisition of a US company by another US company.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 7, 2009 19:11 UTC (Mon) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link] Of course, some people will feel offended by the suggestion that the EC is trying to regulate US business, but seasoned Europeans like me will immediately recognize the need toBut do read the press statement. It answers your question, and I found it rather refreshing and encouraging to see that the EC seems to worry about MySQL remaining open.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 9, 2009 6:06 UTC (Wed) by cmccabe (subscriber, #60281) [Link]
I actually liked a lot of the stuff that the EU has done in the last few years-- like that law banning lead and other harmful substances in cosmetics. (Which the US hasn't gotten around to doing. Oops.)
However, I feel like this antitrust investigation of Oracle will do more harm than good. Oracle isn't going to shut down MySQL. Nobody can shut down MySQL because it's open source and widely used commercially.
There are already a bunch of companies writing engines that plug into MySQL. I doubt that it would be too hard for one of them to pick up the maintainer mantle. This isn't like an operating system where you have to write device drivers for nine zillion different hardware devices. MySQL is just plain old C code.
Unfortunately, the antitrust investigation will bleed Oracle/Sun dry. As long as there's uncertainty hanging over the merge, companies aren't going to want to buy Sun hardware. Nobody wants to own gear that's been end-of-lifed. This just gives more money to Oracle's rivals. Companies like Microsoft, EMC, and IBM-- most of whom would love to throw roadblocks in front of MySQL, to bolster their competing products. So it's really a case of "we had to destroy MySQL, to save it," going on here.
EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Posted Sep 10, 2009 16:09 UTC (Thu) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link] The Wall Street Journal points out the differences between EC and DoJ behaviors, and then actually points out the elephant in the room: MySQL is free software and can't be killed. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574390512306888466.html?mod=googlenews_wsj They think it may be a bid for a symbolic divestment: I tend to think it's competitors to Sun and Oracle throwing FUD at everyone, including the EC, to slow down the sale.
--dave
(I'm biased: I want the sale to so through so I can get more gigs doing capacity planning on large systems) c-b
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