First Desktop to Web to Mobile Solution Based on ODF Standard
A rebranding is in store for StarOffice and StarSuite, and a web-based office suite is in the works that will be tightly integrated with the OpenOffice.org desktop version, allowing users to access their documents from basically any browser and from any device. This information is from Michael Bemmer, former Sun staffer and now head of the new Office Global Business Unit at Oracle, who presents a brief summary of the future of OpenOffice.org and office productivity at Oracle, along with how the Sun Oracle merger will benefit customers and users.
Oracle is hiring 2,000 salespeople and engineers to sell not just software but hardware, now that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, which was completed on Jan. 27, transforms it from a software company to a systems company. In a five-hour event, Oracle executives assured the IT industry it will accelerate the investment in Sun’s SPARC/Solaris server and storage hardware.
The European Commission has issued regulatory approval for Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Inc. for $7.4 billion. Oracle announced the news Jan. 21, and revealed it also expects unconditional approval from China and Russia. It intends to close the transaction shortly. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has scheduled a live event set to take place January 27, to lay out the plans for combining the two companies and their products. Registration for the event, which will be broadcast globally, is currently underway.
Dec. 10 is the day Oracle will be presenting its case to European Union regulators on why it should be allowed to acquire Sun. The European Commission has objected to the $7 billion deal, saying the combination of Sun’s MySQL database product and Oracle’s products could hinder competition in the database market. This ruling has met with opposition from a variety of sources and galvanized letter writing campaigns urging the EU to reconsider its stance. The EC also announced on Nov. 30 that Neelie Kroes, the commission’s competition commissioner for the last five years, will be assigned to a new job. Kroes has been in charge of the investigation into Oracle’s proposed purchase of Sun.
Letter Cites Sun’s Precarious Financial Condition, Fears of More Layoffs A group of 59 U.S. senators sent a letter to the European Commission (EC) on Nov. 24 urging the European antitrust regulators to hurry their investigation into Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, citing the latter’s “precarious” financial condition and fears about more layoffs at the struggling computing company, reported AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson.
European Union (EU) regulators extended the deadline for their final decision on Oracle’s plans to buy Sun by eight days. Announced on November 20, this extension was set in place to satisfy a request made by Oracle who is building its rebuttal to the European Commission’s Statement of Objections issued on November 9th opposing Sun’s acquisition by Oracle. The Commission said it has pushed back its deadline to January 27, 2010, from the original January 19 deadline set back in September.
The European Commission issued a Statement of Objections on November 9th opposing Sun’s acquisition by Oracle. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Sun, the open-source MySQL database software is the sole issue of concern in the matter. In response, Oracle issued a statement saying the objection “reveals a profound misunderstanding of both database competition and open-source dynamics” and the company “plans to vigorously oppose the Commission’s Statement of Objections as the evidence against the Commission’s position is overwhelming.”
The European Union (EU) confirmed that Oracle President Safra Catz met with EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes for negotiations over the company’s acquisition of Sun, which disclosed in a SEC filing this week that it plans on cutting up to 3,000 jobs due to the delay in the acquisition.
Urges Swift Approval to Ensure Database Market Remains Competitive
Former CEO of MySQL Marten Mickos has written a letter of appeal to Neelie Kroes, the European Union’s competition commissioner, urging that Oracle’s pending acquisition of Sun be approved for the good of the market and MySQL. “Every new day of uncertainty is potentially very harmful to the various businesses of Sun, reducing competition in the market,” Mickos writes. “A delay in the closing of this transaction is therefore only going to work against the respectable goal that you set out to achieve when launching the probe into this acquisition.”
Anyone interested in the Sun-Oracle merger should take an hour and a half to watch the replay of former Motorola and Sun executive Ed Zander’s interview of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, which took place September 21 before a gathering of industry dignitaries at the Churchill Club in San Jose, Calif. Ellison discusses his plans for Oracle and the various Sun technologies soon to be acquired when, or if, the European Union approves the buyout.
