Oracle Denies Report Of MySQL Compromise

Oracle denied a report in the New York Post that it is ready to compromise with the European Commission over the status of MySQL.

Post reporter Josh Kosman, in a story headlined “Oracle Leader Blinks,” wrote that “Oracle boss Larry Ellison is backing down from his vow to fight European antitrust regulators who oppose his company’s $7 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems, offering to quarantine a Sun unit at the heart of the conflict, two sources told The Post.”

The Post did not obtain a reaction from Oracle itself.

“This is completely untrue. [We have] no clue where the Post got it!” Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman told eWEEK.

Ellison has said several times that he believes the EC will sanction the deal and that MySQL does not compete with his company’s proprietary databases. The US Department of Justice approved the proposed $7.4 billion acquisition last August.

Backing down from such a legal challenge is uncharacteristic of Oracle and its flamboyant founder and CEO, Ellison. For example, Oracle spent nearly two years [2003-2005] pursuing the acquisition of competitor PeopleSoft after the US Department of Justice originally roadblocked the deal as an antitrust violation. Ultimately, a federal judge overruled the DoJ and allow the deal to be completed.

Kosman, however, told eWEEK that he’s confident in his two sources – one from the banking business and another “close to the deal.” “I wouldn’t write this if I wasn’t convinced about the sources,” Kosman said.

Another eWEEK source on the story suggested that the information might have been floated to the Post to indicate in a backhanded way to the EU that Oracle may be willing to negotiate – or possibly to manipulate the stock prices of either Oracle or Sun.

The Post claimed in its story that “Ellison is now willing to create a separate entity within a combined Oracle-Sun that houses Sun’s MySQL open database software business in order to get the deal completed before a hearing Thursday [10 December] by the European Commission.”

That part of the story proves that the provider of the information to the Post – whoever it may be – is completely out of the loop, Robert McLeod, founder and editor in chief of Mlex, told eWEEK from his office in Brussels. Mlex is a specialised market intelligence consultancy that advises various stakeholders on international regulatory matters.