Senators Ask EC To Let Oracle-Sun Deal Go Through 183
An anonymous reader writes "The European Union has managed to do something that US Presidents often find difficult: to make 59 US Senators from both sides of the aisle agree on something. A group led by John Kerry (D) and Orrin Hatch (R) has sent a letter to the European Union, asking it to wrap up the investigation of the Oracle-Sun merger and let the deal go through. Interestingly, the letter emphasizes the damage the delay and uncertainty are doing to Sun." The article paraphrases a Gartner analyst, who points out that the Senators' letter "comes from a US point of view and doesn't take into account how the EU operates."
Your lobbyists at work (Score:5, Interesting)
"managed to do something that US Presidents often find difficult: to make 59 US Senators from both sides of the aisle agree on something."
The lobbists agree => the senators agree.
Re:Glad I am not the only one believing that... (Score:2, Interesting)
That quote is rather bizarre. It seems to be implying that having a market utterly dominated by a few large companies instead of being composed of many smaller, less individually influential ones isn't harmful to consumers.
EU has a limited view on data store competition (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Glad I am not the only one believing that... (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with you, I didn't write: "that philosophy plays into the Sun/Oracle situation" ;-))
But can we be absolutely sure that Oracle buying Sun was the one and only way to get Sun out of financial problems ?
Re:Glad I am not the only one believing that... (Score:2, Interesting)
The profitable parts (and some non-profitable, but believed to be profitable or able to be made profitable) would be sold off.
or, rather, the 'expensive' employees will be RIF'd.
I was. we had a large RIF about 3 weeks ago. didn't make the news did it? curious, that.
sun can go to hell now, for all I care.
Re:Your lobbyists at work (Score:2, Interesting)
Lobbying is specifically permitted via the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
That said, I share your perception that the lobbying process is a corrupt one and that it almost entirely is the result of businesses and unions, who DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE. I have always felt that one huge step towards remedying this perception is to eliminate all limits on campaign contributions but to also permit campaign contributions ONLY from registered voters that are legally able to vote for the candidate. This would prohibit all political contributions from businesses and from unions, who cannot vote, and it would prohibit political contributions from people in other countries. It also would mean that as a resident of Texas I could contribute whatever I wanted to a candidate in the Texas Governors election but I could not contribute money to the Florida Governors election.
I also believe that if we were to repeal the 17th amendment and go back to the original way of electing United States Senators (selection by the state legislatures) we would see less corruption at the federal level. I am not saying this would eliminate corruption, but I believe it would force US Senators to become much more focused on serving their own states than the federal government.
Re:No legitimate concerns (Score:1, Interesting)
Funnily enough, all those details you mention are not within the control of the european commission, and people would probably be up in arms if they wanted to regulate drinking age or maximum speed.
Re:Glad I am not the only one believing that... (Score:1, Interesting)
I completely disagree - open source OSs are not viable alternatives for worldwide adoption. Sure they are, if you can spend several years training every person in the world solely on computer use, or if you can mandate that only clever people are allowed to use computers, but the knowledge required to use OSS alternatives are higher than for Windows.
It's contradictory to claim that Microsoft is used on platforms where there is no technological fit and that there, their pricing is higher. Platform developers are free to choose their operating system, and e.g. their share of the smartphone market is very limited. If the developer of a Smartphone is free to choose another OS, how is not the operator of an airport free to choose another OS for their display screens?
Of course, you can come up with sociological arguments regarding hurdle costs and inefficient-steady-state preservation. But so could I. If you open up to sociological arguments, there are no limits to what causes and effects can be claimed.
Re:No legitimate concerns (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're going to be pedantic I'll join :)
You are, in fact, an American. The US is a federation, meaning power is granted by the federal government to the lower states. So the government of the US determines whether a state can set a legal drinking age, or whether that is up to the US government itself. The European union is a union of sovereign states. It is the sovereign states that determine (together) which powers are granted to the union government. That's quite a big difference.
Another way to determine your nationality is to check your passport. Mine certainly doesn't say European Union like yours says United States ;)
Re:Glad I am not the only one believing that... (Score:2, Interesting)
Two years from now we will either have a single Oracle/Sun company or a single Oracle company.
Only if you believe that a company the size of Sun can disappear in a puff of smoke. :-)
Sure, Sun would probably go bancrupt. The profitable parts (and some non-profitable, but believed to be profitable or able to be made profitable) would be sold off. A bunch of employees would start their own "Sun 2". Consulting firms would step in to take over maintainance contracts.
Interesting stuff happens when the old dog leaves the barn, you know?
of course they can... remember DEC? Digital was going up in a puff of smoke until Compaq acquired the remains.
Where are the Alpha boxes and OSX now?
Re:Oposite result (Score:2, Interesting)
> It's very simple, if Oracle wants to sell in the European markets they have to obey the European
> fair-competition rules. If they don't like them they can leave the market. In the same way, if any
> European company wants to sell in the US market they have to obey the US fair-competition
> rules or leave the market.
And what happens if the EU ignores it's own fair-competition rules and tries to block the
sale for political purposes?
Re:Glad I am not the only one believing that... (Score:2, Interesting)