Oracle-Sun deal gets EU approval, finally

From CNET News.com: The European Commission has officially approved the Oracle-Sun merger, paving the way for Oracle to take over Sun Microsystems in a deal valued at more than $7 billion.

"I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalize important assets and create new and innovative products," said Neelie Kroes, the European antitrust commissioner, in a statement Thursday.

The approval by the EC, which faced a late-January deadline, comes after months of limbo during which the Commission expressed skepticism about the antitrust aspects of the proposed deal, first announced in April 2009. Concerns that Oracle's ownership of the MySQL software would pose a competitive threat in the database market prompted the European regulators to launch an in-depth investigation in September. Specifically, the Commission feared that MySQL's role as a leading open-source database might be jeopardized if Oracle, a software powerhouse built on its proprietary database, took ownership.

Oracle has an event planned for next Wednesday, open to customers, partners, press, and analysts, in which CEO Larry Ellison and other executives from both Oracle and Sun will discuss their strategy and road map for integrating the two companies and their respective products.

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