Global CIO: Oracle Foes Scurry To Curry Favor With Dictatorships

Spurned by his former heartthrob heroes in the EU, MySQL's founder now sings the praises of Russia and China.

Bob Evans

Contributor

January 17, 2010

"While preposterous, these claims about the horrors that will ensue if Oracle is allowed to keep MySQL come at a terribly critical time as the EU continues to withhold an opinion on Oracle's acquisition of Sun. And that shameful foot-dragging on the part of the EU, along with the cowardly grandstanding of these EU groupies who speak so boldly only because they have absolutely nothing at stake, can now be assigned a very specific and ugly cost: Sun is laying off up to 3,000 employees as part of a restructuring it is being forced to undertake due to the delay in the closing of the Oracle deal."

Instead, Widenius in today's press release chose to say that "as a European I am ashamed of our regulatory system," and went on to lash out at the EU wimps:

"The EC showed courage and competence during most of the investigation but looked very weak in the end," he said. "Mislabeling Oracle's statements related to MySQL as a solution is a dishonest attempt to save face because if an Oracle press release with uselessly vague promises should be all that came out of this effort, it was a waste of time and money.

"They asked us and others for information that wasn't going to matter in the end," Widenius said. "We met with the EC on the 7th and the only point they had in favor of clearance was that Sun is in trouble and they'd have to consider that circumstance. That is no argument at all under competition law because Oracle could have divested MySQL and acquired the rest of Sun anytime."

Well, I hope Widenius gets over the heartache his EC homeys have caused him, and I hope his new infatuation with China and Russia doesn't include any first-hand encounters with the secret police or intelligence services of either country.

And after he spends some time in those totalitarian states, I'll bet he returns home a bit less ashamed of his European status--because he just might get a whole new understanding of what "open" is really all about.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Global CIO: Oracle, Larry Ellison, The EU, And MySQL

Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's Goodbye Letter To European Customers

Global CIO: Why Oracle's Larry Ellison Will Tell The EU To Pound Sand

Global CIO: Oracle Trapped By EU Politics As Sun Employees Suffer

Global CIO: Can Oracle's Larry Ellison Keep MySQL From EU Whiners?

Global CIO: An Open Letter To Oracle CEO Larry Ellison Global CIO: Oracle Nailed By EU Protectionism As HP And IBM Raid Sun

Global CIO: In Oracle Vs. SAP, IBM Could Tip Balance

Oracle's Ellison Calls Out IBM: Why You Gotta Love The Guy

Global CIO: How 22% Fees For Your Equal 51% Operating Margins For Oracle

Bob Evans is senior VP and director of InformationWeek's Global CIO unit.

To find out more about Bob Evans, please visit his page.

For more Global CIO perspectives, check out Global CIO,
or write to Bob at [email protected].

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