Oracle has made a muted response to the decision by the
European Commission to launch an inquiry into its proposed merger
with Sun Microsystems.
In a short statement the supplier noted that the decision had
been made by the EC to investigate the deal but pointed out that
the merger had been cleared by the US authorities.
"The US Department of Justice approved Oracle's proposed
acquisition of Sun Microsystems without conditions and terminated
the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act on August 20,
2009," it said.
The EC had been expected by many to give the tie-up its blessing
last week, but it moved instead to launch an investigation that has
until January to determine whether or not the merger would be bad
for competition.
"The commission has an obligation to ensure that customers would
not face reduced choice or higher prices as a result of this
takeover," EC competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said last
week.
Preliminary investigations by the EC have raised concerns that
Oracle databases and Sun's MySQL compete directly in many parts of
the database market and that competition could be hindered if there
was a change in the Sun open source offering.
This story originally appeared onMicroScope.co.uk