Ellison: Sun's bleeding $100m a month

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 22 Sep 2009 at 08:37

Oracle boss Larry Ellison says Sun is losing $100m a month while his company is waiting for EU approval of its $7.4 billion takeover.

Ellison claims the foot dragging from the European authorities is damaging for both the companies and the regulator. "The longer this takes, the more money Sun is going to lose, and that's not good for anybody," he told a Silicon Valley forum, according to a report in the Financial Times.

That might not be strictly true: both HP and IBM are reported to have picked up Sun customers who are worried by the uncertainty surrounding the takeover deal.

The EU is paying particular attention to the database market, and whether Oracle's acquisition of Sun's MySQL business would harm competition. Ellison claims the EU has nothing to worry about. "MySQL and Oracle do not compete at all," Ellison claimed, adding that he wouldn't be selling off MySQL.

However, Ellison remains confident that the European authorities will soon reach the same conclusion as their US counterparts. "The US took their time and deliberations and cleared it," he said. "They said it was overwhelmingly a pro-competitive deal.

"The Europeans have to do their, job, but I think once they do their job, they'll come to the same conclusion."