Dec. 10 is the day Oracle will be presenting its case to European Union (EU) regulators on why it should be allowed to acquire Sun. The European Commission (EC) has objected to the $7 billion deal, saying the combination of Sun's MySQL database product and Oracle's products could hinder competition in the database market, a Sun regulatory filing in November stated.

Last week, the EU extended a deadline for reviewing the acquisition to Jan. 27 from Jan. 19 after Oracle requested more time to tackle concerns the deal may be anti-competitive. Oracle is building its rebuttal to the European Commission's Statement of Objections issued on November 9 opposing Sun's acquisition by Oracle.

The Sun-Oracle deal has garnered lots of support and galvanized letter writing campaigns urging the EU to reconsider its stance. Reuters reported that a top legal expert on open-source software, Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen, told EU antitrust regulators in a Nov. 19 letter their analysis of the deal is partly flawed. Moglen said that he has found errors in a document from EU regulators that outlines their concerns about clearing the deal.

The assessment from Moglen, whose views on the software industry are often sought out by regulators, could bolster Oracle's efforts to persuade the EU to clear the acquisition after months of delay. Moglen said that the EU document contains factual errors in its analysis of the role MySQL's licensing terms plays in securing competition in the software industry.

"The issues raised (by the commission) concerning the GPLv2 status of the MySQL code base do not warrant a conclusion that this transaction threatens significant anti-competitive consequences," Moglen wrote in his letter to EU regulators.

The Commission also received a letter from a bipartisan group of 59 U.S. Senators last week, calling for the deal's consummation for the good of Sun, which has been damaged badly by the delay.

Former CEO of MySQL Marten Mickos wrote a letter of appeal to Kroes, urging that Oracle's pending acquisition of Sun be approved for the good of the market and MySQL.

Most recently, the CEO of Jaspersoft, an open source business intelligence firm, sent his own open letter urging EU regulators to approve the deal before January. "The software and technology market has grown far too dynamic to allow one acquisition to stifle competition. In this new marketplace, nearly anyone can create software with little upfront cost and then compete with even the most entrenched players," Brian Gentile wrote in his blog.

The Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), the world’s largest knowledge base for Oracle Applications users, also released a letter to the European Commission fully supporting Oracle’s acquisition of Sun. In the letter, OAUG President Raymond Payne relayed that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun would simplify the integration process associated with merging several technologies, supporting all activities, from hardware to the operating system to middleware to the applications and the database, which would benefit any company or organization working with Oracle-related products.

“Our international users group strongly believes Oracle consistently maintains and enhances the use of open standards and expects a continued commitment to these principles with regard to MySQL and other products in the Sun family,” said Raymond Payne. “Oracle’s commitment and continued contributions to the open source community have turned Open Source products into stable and viable solutions for enterprise businesses. Oracle’s acquisition of Sun will be no exception to its usual sound acquisition process.”

The EC also announced on Nov. 30 that Neelie Kroes, the commission's competition commissioner for the last five years, will be assigned to a new job when her term in the antitrust office expires in January. Kroes has been in charge of the investigation into Oracle's proposed purchase of Sun. Her new assignment will place her as vice president of the EC and she will oversee the European Network and Information Security Agency as digital agenda commissioner. The DAC is responsible for managing improvement in online access to educational content.

However, she will still have influence on the EC's decision on the Sun-Oracle transaction, a source close to the situation told eWEEK. Observers close to the situation contacted by eWEEK generally believe that the EC's steadfast position against the acquisition probably will not change with the new official in place. It's unlikely that Kroes will vacate her post before Oracle pleads its case, with the latest appointments now requiring approval from the European Parliament in January before they can take up their new offices.

Kroes' successor as competition commissioner is Joaquin Almunia, who the Wall Street Journal notes was a Spanish government minister in the 1980s and 1990s while his Socialist party was in power. He previously was involved in creating European economic policy, including the October 2008 bailout of Hungary.

The Journal notes that Almunia hasn't pressed as hard as Kroes for tough sanctions on bailed-out banks. Instead, he was focused on creating financial stability. In announcing Almunia as the new competition chair, EC president Jose Barroso called him "one of the most competent commissioners of the last five years."

More Information

European Commission Objects to Oracle's Acquisition of Sun

Oracle President Meets with EU Competition Commissioner

European Commission Launches Investigation into Oracle-Sun Deal

US Justice Department Approves Oracle's Acquisition of Sun

Sun-Oracle Deal Scrutinized by European and US Regulators

In-depth Analysis on the Impact of the Oracle-Sun Merger

Sun Stockholders Approve Oracle Acquisition

Sun to be Acquired by Oracle [...read more...]

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