Global CIO: Oracle's EU Nemesis Mocked Intel After $1.5B Fine

at a press conference in mid-May, Kroes, speaking to reporters and preening for photographers as she announced the $1.5 billion fine she was levying on Intel, cracked wise that Intel should change its advertising slogan from "sponsors of tomorrow" to "sponsors of the European taxpayer." Oh that Kroes--what a cut-up!

As for her fervent hopes to bleed Sun dry and burn a few thousand more jobs in order to make Oracle drop its acquisition bid, maybe she was all prepared to rise again to the level of her Intel one-liner and say something like this: "Now that I've neutered Oracle, they should change their slogan from 'the information company' to 'the impotent company.' " Or maybe the EU's closet comedienne would take a different tack and say, "We Europeans won't let Oracle sap our enterprise software market!" (Get it?? Get it??)

Well, after so much Kroesian hilarity I hate to be the buzz-killer but let's wrap this up with a final word from Prof. Cass on the dangerous path down which Kroes and her fellow travelers of the EC are intent on taking Europe:

"If antitrust authorities around the world see this as the pattern to emulate--after all, it increases the prominence and importance of the regulator and pleases all the firms that don't have to work so hard to keep up with market leaders--the rest of us will suffer as well."

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].