UK Oracle users support Sun buy

Oracle announced its intentions to buy Sun in April

The UK Oracle User Group said today that it supports the database giant's acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

European anti-trust regulators are still holding up the $7.4bn (£4.5bn) deal, citing fears about the dominance it will give Oracle in the market. But the vendor's user group is putting forward the benefits.

The European Union's principal objection is that Oracle is the largest proprietary database vendor in the market, and will acquire the owner of MySQL, which is the most popular open-source database on the market.

The UK Oracle User Group has concluded that MySQL is not the main issue, however, and that providing a determined future for Java, and for those members with a significant investment in Sun hardware, is more important.

Sun customers have been left in a state of uncertainty over Oracle's plans for the company's product development because of the length of time it is taking for the deal to go through.

"Uncertainty over the future of Java risks our members' investments in both Oracle technologies and in developed applications," said the user group's chairman Ronan Miles.

"Oracle, in terms of strategy and commitment to open source, will provide a secure future for Java. Oracle's record of preserving customer investments and support of open standards would indicate as safe a future for MySQL as any other owner.

"Oracle has also demonstrated how it is able to absorb the people from acquired companies to drive the best product development, and hence the best customer value."

US senators stepped into the debate earlier this week to urge the EU to finish the Oracle/Sun probe as soon as possible.