Brussels, 03/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission opened an in-depth investigation on Thursday 3 September on the proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation. The Commission is concerned that the high concentration by the parties on the database market will make the concentration incompatible with European competition rules.
Sun, a company under US law, is a hardware and software vendor and the leading company for open source databases. Oracle, also American, is active in the company software sector, and world leader for “propriety” databases. In the current economic context “systems based on open-source software are increasingly emerging as viable alternatives to proprietary solutions. The Commission has to ensure that such alternatives would continue to be available”, states Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a press release. (C.D./transl.jl)