EU clears Oracle to buy Sun unconditionally

After a drawn out antitrust investigation, The European Commission Thursday cleared U.S. software giant Oracle Corp. to take over smaller rival Sun Microsystems Inc. for $7.4 billion.

The clearance without conditions is the last major hurdle for the deal to go through. Although antitrust investigations are still open in China and Russia, Oracle said following the EU's green light that it expects both jurisdictions to clear the deal unconditionally. Oracle also said the company intends to "close the transaction shortly."

The EU clearance comes after an in-depth antitrust probe opened on Sept. 3 over worries that Oracle's acquisition of the world's leading open source database MySQL would hamper competition in the database markets.

Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle is known for database software and application software that works with it. MySQL is a free alternative, which critics of the deal said could evolve into a competitor to Oracle.

Database markets are already highly concentrated with three main proprietary database vendors - Oracle, International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp. - controlling about 85% of the market in terms of revenue, and MySQL was seen by some as providing a much cheaper alternative.

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