[Info-vax] Oracle loses appeal in HP/Oracle Lawsuit

[Neil Rieck]

> 
> As we become more and more like the EU.  Where else can a company be
> ordered to lose money in a time of very hard economics.
> 

With all due respect, this has nothing to do with the US becoming like the EU. Almost every western country allows monopolistic behavior but this comes with a huge amount of government oversight. When companies get too big, they can either live with the oversight (like the telcos did for over 100 years) or break up their companies so they are no longer considered a monopoly.

No one can deny the fact that Oracle is king of the relational database world because they've got the best software in that marketplace (IMHO). But they raised more than a few government eyebrows when the acquired MySQL (probably with the intention of slowing its development). But in the end, no one really cared because there were other open alternatives available, like MariaDB, which most Linux distros are moving to now. But when Oracle bought SUN, then said they were discontinuing a software product found on the hardware of one of their former business partners (probably with the intention of killing the competition), they were guilty of monopolistic behavior. This kind of behavior could only attract anti-trust regulators although it appears absent in this instance (although I bet it is being discussed in private).

Hypothetically speaking, if Oracle still wants to stop software development for Itanium, they would first need to sell SUN.

p.s. I am fond of ending blog posts with the humble phrase "Just my 2-cents worth" but in seeing your recent sign-off I was reminded of the fact that Canada will soon discontinue the penny. While the penny will be in circulation for quite some time, businesses have been instructed to either round up or down as they see fit. While "Just my 0-cents" may be appropriate in my case, it looks too weird so let me sign off with...

Just my 5-cents worth (apologies to Lucy and Charlie Brown)

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/OpenVMS.html