Summary Box: EU applies brakes to Oracle-Sun deal on questions about database market

Summary Box: EU applies brakes to Oracle-Sun deal

SLOW DOWN: European Union regulators are launching a formal antitrust investigation into Oracle Corp.’s proposed $7.4 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems Inc. Oracle expected to complete the acquisition this summer, but European regulators now have until Jan. 19 to decide whether to clear or block the deal. The U.S. Department of Justice has already approved it.

DATABASE DILEMMA: The focus of the investigation is whether Oracle would gain too much power in the market for database software. Last year Sun bought a Swedish company called MySQL, which makes the leading open-source database program. Regulators are looking into whether Oracle, the leader in overall database software, might give MySQL’s products short shrift in favor of its own products.

WHAT’S NEXT: The EU could let the deal proceed but force the companies to sell off MySQL. That might not be a big problem for Oracle. Oracle said when it agreed to buy Sun that it was mostly interested in another part of Sun’s business, the Java programming language that Sun invented.