SAN FRANCISCO — Oracle figured its $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems could skate through antitrust scrutiny, folding Sun into a technology powerhouse when Sun badly needs the lifeline. Both companies will have to wait.
European Union regulators applied the brakes Thursday, launching a formal antitrust probe that shatters Oracle’s goal of completing the acquisition this summer. The U.S. Department of Justice has approved the deal.
The investigation is focused on whether Oracle will gain too much power in the market for database software, which underpins most things people do in business or on the Web. It helps companies manage and retrieve data they’ve stored, such as payroll or sales information.
Typing in a search term, for example, forces a website to scour a database and spit out an answer.
In particular, EU regulators want to make sure Oracle will properly care for Sun’s rival open-source database software — which is freely given away in hopes of selling other products to the users — or let it wither in favor of Oracle’s proprietary software.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said regulators needed to examine whether customers could have fewer choices or see higher prices “when the world’s biggest proprietary database company proposes to take over the world’s leading open-source database company.”
The European Commission has until Jan. 19 before it makes a final decision.
MySQL, a Swedish company that Sun bought for $1 billion last year, is a tiny player, with 0.2 percent market share, but is the reason European regulators are worried.
The EU officials claim that MySQL, already popular among Web-based companies, will increasingly threaten Oracle’s database software as it adds features and attracts more customers.
The regulators questioned “Oracle’s incentive to further develop MySQL as an open- source database.”
Sun and Oracle declined to comment Thursday.
