Sun acquistion coming to a close - Oracle given go-ahead

It's been a stormy nine months for Oracle as its Sun acquisition brought new-found fame and many inquisitive eyes. When it was announced there was element of surprise, according to Bobbie Johnson, The Guardian. The roller coaster journey steered Oracle into the palm of the EU with many questions being asked as to whether this may ruin the software industry.

However, yesterday, near the end of play, we were informed that EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes approved the buy-out: "I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned," she said in a statement. "Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalise important assets and create new and innovative products."

There have been questions asked over the future of open source products with fear in parts of the IT industry that this will hamper innovation. However, maybe this is where the acquisition of $7.4bn Sun gets interesting. Oracle still need China and Russia to give its approval, and as Timothy Prickett Morgan, The Register, explains - it's the integration of the software and hardware that needs to begin and this brings its own challenges and difficult decisions.

It is also expected that with this merger, the industry could be flooded with Sun specialists. Brent Thill, an analyst for UBS, has predicted that Sun's workforce will be reduced by half. Maximising the potential from Oracle applications will now present interesting opportunities.

"What we have now is one very large organisation with a huge portfolio of applications and platforms that can also provide large-scale hardware," said Chris Baker, Global Sales & Marketing Director. "This presents endless opportunities for businesses to create intelligent bespoke systems utilising hardware that is fully integrated into the platform. Installations will become more efficient. We will see much more innovation in the Oracle space that will put it on par with Microsoft. With size and scope usually comes complexity. Those who are going to succeed and take real advantage of the new-style Oracle, will be the ones that can make their way through the confusion that can sometimes follow a merger."