Oracle-Sun merger gains favor in Europe

Following new promises made by Oracle over the weekend regarding MySQL, the EU seems set to approve the deal

Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems seems set for regulatory clearance in the European Union. The companies' latest promises to safeguard competition in the market for database software, make the Commission optimistic that the case will have a satisfactory outcome, it said Monday.

The Commission, Europe's top antitrust regulator, hosted a two-day hearing at the end of last week, giving Oracle the chance to defend its planned deal with Sun. Since then, officials in the Commission's competition division have been engaged in discussions with Oracle over the weekend about how to allow the deal to go ahead without harming Sun's open source database, MySQL.

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