The merger drama continues

Some people just don't have much patience! For instance, the big news in the snack food world this month was that Utz and Snyder's of Hanover were going to merge -- except then the two companies called it off, citing the protracted review process that they had to endure. The total time they were held in limbo by regulators? 15 days.

By contrast, Oracle and Sun have endured regulatory delays for months now, and it looks like the merger won't clear until January at the earliest. And scuttlebutt has it that the European Commission will be raising some sort of formal objection to the process, which Oracle would have to address. And many clearly pro-Oracle anonymous sources quoted in this story say that Oracle will unleash a war if that happens, calling on allies in the U.S. government -- including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose San Francisco district is just a few miles from the headquarters of both companies -- to put pressure on the Europeans on behalf of the merger.

If the merger doesn't happen, the consequences are probably pretty dire for Sun; Oracle would lose face pretty publicly, but wouldn't be in a terrible position, as Sun would be back to its previous status as a rival, and much weakened. In all probability, the company would end up shedding most of its business piecemeal, and Oracle could snap up the bits it wanted at a discount -- all the bits other than MySQL, anyway, as that's the sticking point for the Europeans.

Which leads to the question of how important Java is to this whole thing after all. I at least have been working on the assumption that Java is what Oracle is really after in this whole adventure; but if that's so, why is it so grimly refusing to consider leaving MySQL out of the equation, even if that puts the whole transaction in jeopardy? Is MySQL the real prize after all? Or does Oracle's macho attitude mean that no compromises are possible once a course has been set?