In what has become a contentious and costly acquisition saga, Oracle’s pursuit of Sun Microsystems may have hit its biggest hurdle yet, as the European Competition Commission appears ready to file an objection to the merger.
According to a report in today’s Financial Times, which cited an unnamed source close to the proceedings, Oracle’s refusal to offer concessions in its bid to swallow Sun has prompted the commission to ready an official statement of objections, which the Times calls “the first step on the path to blocking [the acquisition].”
When contacted by Managing Automation today, the commission declined to comment on the speculation that it would move to block the acquisition.
Oracle offered to buy Sun for $7.4 billion in April, hoping to take over the company’s server business, MySQL open source database technology, the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, and other technology.