The European Commission today approved Oracle Corp.’s proposed $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc., removing the deal’s last significant roadblock.
Oracle now needs approvals from China and Russia. The company, in a prepared statement, said it anticipates that it will gain those approvals and “intends to close the transaction shortly.”
The European Commission’s approval of the deal opens the way for Oracle to carry out its plan to become a provider of a wider range of integrated information technologies. By adding Sun’s SPARC microprocessor-based server hardware, Solaris operating system, and storage systems to Oracle’s database, middleware, and enterprise application software products, the company will be positioned to sell fully integrated systems and to compete more directly against rivals such as IBM.
“With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle plans to transform to a systems company by engineering and delivering integrated systems — from applications to disk — where all the pieces fit and work together, so customers do not have to do it themselves,” Oracle has said in a public statement.