Brussels, 14/12/2009 (Agence Europe) - US company Oracle, the world's largest enterprise software company, has just announced that significant progress has been made in its attempts to get European Commission approval for its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. In a press release published on Monday 14 December, the Commission says it had “engaged in constructive discussions” with Oracle regarding the maintenance of the MySQL database owned by Sun Microsystems as an “important competitive force in the database market” after Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The “announcement by Oracle of a series of undertakings to customers, developers and users of MySQL is an important new element to be taken into account in the ongoing proceedings,” the Commission says. European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes repeated her optimism as to the outcome of the case. The Commission had threatened to oppose the operation if MySQL was to be run down. Oracle announced on Monday, however, that it wanted to increase investment in MySQL and was determined to maintain the MySQL open-source system of granting of licences. (O.L./transl.rt)