What’s the difference between European Commission competition watchdog Neelie Kroes and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison? 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–at least, according to Competition Commissioner Kroes.
Ugly news. The end of Sun Microsystems as an independent company after 27 years is to be prefaced with a bloodletting. And a big one too. The company is sacking some 3,000 employees as it awaits the closing of Oracle’s planned $7.4 billion takeover.
Oracle’s pending acquisition of Sun will undoubtedly be the subject of much discussion this afternoon when the database behemoth reports fiscal first-quarter earnings after the market close. Indeed, there’s quite a bit of jawing about it already, particularly about Oracle’s continued commitment to the deal in light of the ugly decline in Sun’s revenues and profitability since it was announced in April.
“Manifestly disproportionate.” That’s how Intel describes the record $1.45 billion antitrust fine levied against it by the European Union, one the company evidently believes was meted out in error.
Longtime Intel general counsel Bruce Sewell, who left the company without explanation yesterday, evidently had good reason for doing so: He has taken a new job at Apple. That would certainly explain the “surprise” Intel expressed over his departure. And also why the company was so quick to remove his corporate bio from its Web site.
Pat Gelsinger isn’t the only Intel veteran leaving the company amid the big management restructuring announced today. Longtime general counsel Bruce Sewell is taking his leave as well. Which is odd, since Sewell has been quarterbacking Intel’s fight against antitrust allegations at home and abroad since, well, since they were first brought against the company.
Google claims that its Book Search settlement will “bring back to life millions of lost books in a way that serves the interest of all.” And if that truly is its goal, the company is going to have to put its own Brobdingnagian self interests second to those of others–if only for a little while. To wit, Google’s announcement Monday of a number of concessions to the European Union, which seems a bit dubious of the whole thing.
Intel proclaims itself a “Sponsor of Tomorrow,” but the company isn’t going to be a sponsor of the European Union if it can help it. The chip maker filed an appeal today challenging the European Commission’s $1.45 billion antitrust fine against it–the agency’s largest ever in a monopoly-abuse case.
With a 20 percent share of the the world-wide browser market and 31 percent of its European segment, Mozilla’s Firefox browser has clearly proven that Microsoft Internet Explorer is not immune to free-market competition. But the natural course of the free markets is apparently not moving fast enough for the European Commission, which is mulling forcing Microsoft to include browsers other than IE in its Windows OS.
What silliness. Microsoft and the European Commission have canceled a face-to-face hearing in an antitrust case pending against the company over a scheduling dispute, of all things.
Microsoft has a far easier time meeting legal deadlines than software ship dates, doesn’t it? The European Commission today said the company met its deadline to respond to charges that its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows violates European competition laws.
Oh, they’re all piling on now. Google has thrown its backing behind European antitrust regulators’ latest complaint against Microsoft, which accuses the software behemoth of illegally bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser and Windows operating system. Like Mozilla before it, the company is applying to become a “third party” in the European proceeding.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
