Q: What’s the Difference Between Neelie Kroes and Larry Ellison?
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 21, 2009 at 8:40 AM PT
Q: What’s the difference between European Commission competition watchdog Neelie Kroes and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison?
A: Kroes isn’t losing $100 million a month on Sun Microsystems.
Much as Ellison would like to blame the European Commission for yesterday’s bloodletting at Sun, responsibility lies squarely with Oracle (ORCL). For while Ellison complains that every month the $7.4 billion acquisition is delayed amounts to a $100 million loss for Sun (JAVA), he has not yet given the EC good reason to approve it–at least according Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, who’s disappointed with Oracle’s cooperation in the commission’s antitrust probe so far.
Kroes said as much in a recent meeting with Oracle president Safra Catz, according to Jonathan Todd, the commission’s spokesman for competition.
“Kroes expressed her disappointment that Oracle failed to produce, despite repeated requests, either hard evidence that there were no competition problems or a proposal for a remedy to the competition concerns identified by the commission,” Todd told Bloomberg. “Kroes reiterated to Catz the commission’s willingness to move quickly towards a decision but underlined that a rapid solution lies in Oracle’s hands. Either they have to give us the information to prove that our competition concerns are not well founded or offer remedies to satisfy our concerns.”
So if Oracle is looking for a quick solution to the case, it best provide one–otherwise, it’s looking at $100 million a month in losses at Sun.
Comments
Of course if the EU were really being smart they’d let the merger go through and then find something to fine Oracle for down the line. That way the $100M would be going into their pockets instead of being lost into the vapors of trillion dollar deficits.
Posted by Mac Beach at October 21st, 2009 at 11:52 am