Sun to cut 3000 jobs, blames Oracle takeover delay
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 15:00 IST   |    8 Comments
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Sun to cut 3000 jobs, blames Oracle takeover delay
New York: Sun Microsystems will cut 3,000 jobs over the next 12 months because of the delay in its takeover by software giant Oracle. The company is waiting for the verdict an European Union (EU) probe regarding the takeover. Sun Microsystems in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that the layoffs are part of a restructuring plan brought in by the delay in its acquisition by Oracle. The company said the move will result in charges of between $75 million and $125 million over the next several quarters. The $7.4 billion deal, for a one-time Silicon Valley star and developer of the Java programming language, was approved by its shareholders in July and the U.S. Department of Justice in August. The EU is still investigating the case, and a decision is due by January 19, 2010. Oracle had said last month that Sun was losing $100 million every month as it waited for the probe. The EU is concerned that the deal, if approved, could breach competition rules, which will lead to rise in prices and less choice for customers. The major concern lies on Oracle having control over Sun's MySQL database business. EU Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said the EU is obliged to investigate "when the world's biggest proprietary database company proposes to take over the world's leading open-source database company". On the other hand, Oracle maintains that MySQL did not compete against each other, and said it would not sell MySQL to get the deal approved. Oracle will look to strengthen its position against rival IBM, which gave up on its own attempts to buy Sun earlier this year.

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