WTF?!?

Do any of you who read this blog know anyone at Google who might care about this? I got the following e-mail tonight:

from Blogger
to dennis.moore@gmail.com
date Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:27 AM
subject http://dbmoore.blogspot.com/ - ACTION REQUIRED
mailed-by blogger.bounces.google.com
signed-by google.com

hide details 12:27 AM (6 minutes ago)


Hello,

Your blog at: http://dbmoore.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at [URL redacted]

Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, your blog will be deleted in 20 days. Click this link to request the review: [URL redacted]

WTF? Yet another example of how a total lack of authentication and human decision making can result in strange and unsatisfying experiences for users. I have (according to Google's Feedburner) about 178 subscribers to this blog, more than double the number of two months ago. The blog gets almost 10,000 visitors in the past month, and just under 2,500 clicks through links posted on the blog in the same time period.

Is there anyone reading this who knows how Google determined that my blog is "spam?" Is there anyone reading this who can ask someone at Google to ensure this gets resolved in the right way? I don't get paid for this blog, and I don't put advertising on it (so I don't get paid by advertisers for it either), so I don't want to pay for my blogging service - does anyone have a suggestion of a different free blogging service I should be using instead of Google Blogger? I feel like I should move to a different service with my subscribers now before Google decides I am the prince of darkness. Although I have a lot more activity on Twitter and The OracAlumni Network than on this blog, I still like having the blog for the opportunity to occasionally post my harebrained, semi-econometric theories. Suggestions, advice, or help greatly appreciated!

Just keeps getting better

Comments by Nicholas Carr (IT skeptic/critic/expert) and Hal Varian (Google's chief economist) got me thinking about enterprise applications, and why there haven't been any real killer apps for the enterprise for quite some time (since ERP?).

Hal Varian is a very impressive guy, with some very impressive thoughts, who appears to be be appropriately credited with perfecting a bunch of Google's algorithms and using them to drive business strategy. In the interview linked above, he commented a bit on data, it's value, and scale. Enterprise apps contain huge amounts of data, and the amount is continually growing. Strangely, much enterprise data is redundant - for example, when a business buys something from another business, both businesses capture the data about the transaction. Unlike in the consumer world, very little of the data is really analyzed in a way designed to increase knowledge, wisdom, drive strategy, or create value in any way. Using the example I just cited of a B2B purchasing transaction, the data is used to ensure the item is created, shipped, billed for, collected for, commissions paid, ledgers recorded, income tax paid, financial statements updated. The process is called "order to cash," and that seems to be the beginning and end of it - when "cash happens," that's pretty much the end.

Nicholas Carr's argument, in the link above, covers a lot of ground, but the really killer comment is:

"Ultimately, on the network, applications win if they get better the more people use them." [His italics]

Wow! That really got me thinking. Can you name an enterprise application that gets better the more people use it? And by better, I mean "better for the user." CRM may get better for the manager, and Purchasing might get better for the CFO, but does your CRM application get better for the sales or service person as more sales or service people use it, or as one sales or service person uses it more? Does your Purchasing application get better the more people request Purchase Requisitions?

I can think of only a very small number of enterprise applications that get better the more people use the application. SAP's Community Network (SCN) gets better the more people use it, because participation captures and propagates issues, solutions, and ideas. I'm sure SAP gets revenue because of SCN, but it is presumably hard to prove that fact. However, SCN is a community with a bunch of software supporting it, not an enterprise application per se.

Lithium is an enterprise application very similar to SCN - it is a SaaS system that creates communities ("Customer Networks," as Lithium calls them) for issues, solutions, and ideas. Lithium's customers can also cross-sell and upsell items to their communities within Lithium. The more users, the better this application gets.

LinkedIn also gets better with additional use, up to a point. However, LinkedIn is perhaps more vitamin than migraine medicine, and people always pay more to solve a real problem than for a "nice to have." SuccessFactors would see to have the potential to get better with use, but capturing job descriptions, relevant objectives, review language, and other related data, although I'm not sure if the system really does this. Probably some enterprise knowledge management tools get better with more use, although many of them seem to get overwhelmed when the use reaches even a modest level - you can't find any item because it is obscured by many near misses.

Think of all the enterprise applications you know - do any of them get better with additional use? Do they mine data to project trends? Do they capture text to predictively enter it for you next time? Do they alert you when data show a pattern from the past (like a customer becoming a bad credit risk, or an employee preparing to resign, or a competitor gaining an advantage)? Do your enterprise applications get better with more use?

Shouldn't they?

If you can think of any enterprise applications that get better with more use, please leave me a comment mentioning the application and how it gets better with use. Thanks!

SAP and SaaS

There has been a lot of chatter about SAP's moves in the SaaS world, so I thought I'd chime in with my €0.02. I'll leave off most attributions/references below, as you can google the citations yourself with Bing. :) Nothing below is based on any insider or proprietary knowledge I may have or have had in the past (after working for SAP from 2001 to 2007).

1. SAP does not have a strong history in SaaS, and it does not have a great track record with its flagship effort there (Business By Design, or BbD). Nonetheless, SAP has some experience with SaaS via acquisitions of products/companies like Coghead and Frictionless Commerce.
2. Traditionally, SAP has held that SaaS was for small enterprises ("small" is what SAP calls anything below €500M per year in revenue or budget), and that large enterprises would not stand for off-premise software due to its difficulties in customization, integration, and security.
3. SAP has also held that SaaS and hosted are pretty much the same, and SAP has claimed that multi-tenancy is a red herring. Hard to believe, but SAP invented a convoluted architectural distinction called "mega-tenancy," which was basically single tenant in nature. Opponents argued that multi-tenancy was the only way to scale SaaS, at least in a way that was economically viable. Currently, SAP contends that BbD is ready to ship except that it is not yet profitable enough (aka not yet economically viable); SAP has yet to reveal publicly whether it still holds that multi-tenancy is not needed for SaaS viability. Incidentally, SAP's on-premise architecture is not multi-tenant (for most SAP products). It is no easy task to take a huge product and rearchitect it from single- to multi-tenancy.
4. For a long time, SAP called BbD the "business process platform," indicating that it was a good environment for building and deploying new processes not included in SAP's software. SAP also had a "technology platform" in NetWeaver (NW). John Wookey's new effort has been publicly stated as being based on the Frictionless Commerce code, not on BbD (but I believe Frictionless is based on NW), so SAP has chosen a different "business process platform" from the one the company has put so much effort and investment into. What does that say about BbD? Incidentally, Frictionless: multi-tenant.
   
5. Lest it seem I am all "gloom and doom" about SAP and SaaS, let me dispel that perception. John Wookey's strategy is quite brilliant. SAP's detractors claim that SAP cannot afford to move to the subscription pricing business model frequently associated with SaaS. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today, SAP's revenues are primarily NOT from software licenses. In fact, it is common for customers to get large discounts (say 80%) off license, followed by approximately 20% per year (based on list price) annual maintenance beginning in the second year of the agreement. This is equivalent to a 20% per year (every year, including the first) pricing for the customer, which is more or less a subscription model. With an enterprise license, it is not possible to recognize all the revenue up front if the customer pays SAP for any implementation services (not sure if SAP is not involved in the implementation, and not sure of the percentage of implementations in which SAP is involved), so SAP ends up recognizing over more than a one year period in many cases already. With SaaS, there would be no appreciable change in revenue recognition for SAP. However, for customers, there would be the potential of a much lower up front cost (less customization, less hardware and non-SAP software licenses), with much higher ROI, so presumably customers would adopt more software faster with SaaS than with only an on-premise option. And SAP is targeting large enterprise SaaS at "edge" applications, many of which customers were not buying from SAP in any case, so this gives the potential for additional revenue for SAP. Especially since customers are not buying SAP's on-premise software in droves anymore (down 40% year over year last quarter, I believe).
   

Just some Monday morning thoughts. Anything I missed, got wrong, totally blew? Let me know ... thanks!

EU questions about Oracle acquisition of mySQL (Sun)

Apparently, the EU is concerned about the possible anti-competitive potential of the Oracle acquisition of mySQL as part of Oracle's purchase of Sun. I contacted the EU, and they forwarded me a survey they are sending to Oracle's competitors who may be affected by the acquisition. There is a second survey they sent me for those who consider themselves to be customers who may be affected by the acquisition. For those who want to comment on the acquisition, the surveys may be obtained by contacting "Adrian.LUEBBERT@ec.europa.eu", and the surveys must be filled out and returned by August 13, 2009 (presumably Close of Business during CET).

Reading the surveys, I am struck by how naive or nefarious the author of the survey was. The questions are phrased in such a way as to justify action to prevent the acquisition from approval by the EU anti-trust regulators. For example:

In your view, do all database products compete with each other? Yes No

No room for "To some very limited extent." Or:

To your knowledge, are there any operating systems which would support exclusively databases offered by the same company as the company offering the respective operating system? For example, are there any operating systems of IBM or Microsoft that would only support IBM databases of Microsoft databases respectively?

How about "Are there any databases that run only on the maker's operating system?"

In any case, here are the two surveys for your own perusal. The first is the survey sent to competing vendors, and the second to customers who may be affected.

Vendor survey

I. INTRODUCTION

On 30 July 2009, Oracle Corporation (hereafter named “Oracle”) notified to the European Commission under the Merger Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004), their intention to acquire SUN Microsystems Inc. (hereafter named "Sun"; both Oracle and Sun will be named hereafter "the parties").

Under the Merger Regulation, the Commission has to assess the proposed transaction's impact on competition. To that end, it must examine in an in depth manner the structure of the markets in which the activities of the above‑mentioned companies overlap or are related to each other. It must gather data on the subject from the parties, but also from other market players, in particular customers and competitors.

Your detailed reply to the questionnaire is very important for us in examining the notified transaction. We would be grateful for any additional remarks you may wish to make concerning the potential impact of the proposed transaction on competition. Please feel free to send us any documentation, studies, articles, etc. on the relevant markets, which in your view may help us in our analysis. If you consider any of the questions irrelevant, please say so and give your reasons.

Please reply for all the companies in your group. With respect to financial data, please give the figures for 2008 (alternatively 2007 if no figures exist yet for 2008) and express monetary amounts, unless requested otherwise, in thousands of Euro.

All information which is clearly marked “confidential” will be treated as such[1]. You are kindly requested to provide a non-confidential version of your reply.

The Commission is aware that answering the questionnaire may involve a considerable amount of work. We thank you in advance for your assistance and co-operation. If you have questions about the questionnaire, please contact any of the case handlers:

- Mr Adrian LÜBBERT (phone: +32-2-298.47.60; adrian.luebbert@ec.europa.eu), or

- Ms Vera POZZATO (phone: +32-2-299.30.12; vera.pozzato@ec.europa.eu) or

- Ms Sabine CROME (phone: +32-2-299.39.46; sabine.crome@ec.europa.eu or

If you have any general queries or if you would like to receive the electronic copy of this questionnaire, please contact the case secretariat:
- Ms Marianna CSEH (phone: +32-2-298.42.37; marianna.cseh@ec.europa.eu).

We would encourage you to complete the questionnaire in electronic form. If you so decide, please send an e-mail with the following text in the subject line of the e-mail “Case COMP/M.5529 Oracle/Sun ‑ Request Q-Comp Databases in e-format” to the case secretariat from which you will receive the electronic copy. If you so request, you will receive a confirmation of receipt of your submission.

Please return your reply at the latest by 13 August 2009.

II. GENERAL DETAILS

1. Please give the contact details of the person we can contact in case we have questions on your reply:

Company:
Contact person:		Phone:
Position		Fax:
Address:		Country:
Company web-site:

2. Please give a brief description of your company's business in the field of databases, including in particular, the products and services sold by your company in this field.

3. Please indicate your net turnover in 2008 (or 2007 if not available for 2008 yet) in million EUR achieved world-wide and in the EEA[2] (i.e. total sales after deduction of value added tax).

II. QUESTIONNAIRE

A. Market definition

Relevant product market

In order to examine the competitive effects of the proposed transaction on the market, the Commission is required to define the “relevant product markets”. A relevant product market comprises all those products and/or services which are regarded as interchangeable or substitutable by the customers, by reason of the products’ characteristics, prices and intended use.

Oracle's and Sun's activities overlap in database products, more precisely in relational database management systems. Databases are software programmes designed to organise, store, analyse and retrieve information.

4. Please list your product offerings in the field of databases. By ticking the appropriate boxes, please also specify for each of your database products whether the product is proprietary or "open source", whether they can be deployed on Unix-based operating systems, Linux/Open Source Systems, Windows NT or other operating systems.

	Proprietary v. Open Source		Operating system
Product	Proprietary	Open Source	Unix	Linux	Windows NT	Other
	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨
	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨
	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨
	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨
	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨
	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨
	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨	¨

5. Please list the most important characteristics of your respective databases (technical characteristics, efficiency, cost, suitability for any specific application, etc) that lead your customers to purchase these databases.

6. Please indicate whether there are technical or practical barriers to switching between databases.

7. Please indicate whether you provide technical support for:

¨ MySQL;

¨ Other open source databases (please specify).

8. Please briefly describe your marketing and sales/distribution organisation for your respective databases (e.g., specialised sales force for each database, sales force common to several databases (please specify), distributors, resellers, system integrators, others).

9. Please provide your view on the way customers take purchasing decisions for databases. Which of the following statements is the most appropriate?

¨ Database customers usually decide to purchase databases that best meet their needs AND are compatible with their existing server infrastructure and server operating system; or

¨ Database customers usually decide to purchase those databases that best meet their needs AND THEN adapt their server and server operating system to the newly purchased database if necessary; or

¨ Database customers usually take purchase decision about server, server operating system and database at the same moment; or

¨ Other (please specify)

10. To your knowledge, are there any operating systems which would support exclusively databases offered by the same company as the company offering the respective operating system? For example, are there any operating systems of IBM or Microsoft that would only support IBM databases of Microsoft databases respectively?

11. In your view, is the choice of a database product dictated by the operating system(s) in use in a company? Are there databases that a company could not consider as substitutes because the operating systems in use in the company would limit the choice? Please elaborate.

12. Do customers use databases from different suppliers alongside each other, in particular proprietary databases alongside open source databases? Please elaborate.

13. If you offer open source databases, do you generate revenues from these databases? If yes, please explain the way you generate revenues (commercial licenses, support services etc.).

14. In your view, do all database products compete with each other?

Yes No

Please give reasons for your answer.

15. If you are of the view that only certain database products compete with each other, specify how you would delineate categories of database products that compete with each other and give reasons.

16. In your view, do open source database products and proprietary database products compete with each other?

Yes No

Please give reasons for your answer. If your answer is yes, please specify for which uses open source database products and proprietary database products compete. Please specify also which proportion of your sales of databases competes, i.e. which proportion of your sales of proprietary databases competes with open source databases and which proportion of your open source databases competes with proprietary databases.

Relevant geographic market

A relevant geographic market comprises the area in which the conditions of competition are sufficiently homogenous and which can be distinguished from neighbouring geographic areas because, in particular, the conditions of competition are appreciably different in those areas.

17. Do you see any reason why the geographical dimension of the market for databases should be less than worldwide? Please explain.

18. When selling a database, are there any geographical restrictions on the database license? Are prices different from one country/region to the other?

B. Market data

19. Please provide information on your revenues in 2008 in EUR '000 for your database products. Please distinguish between revenues from licenses and from service or support contracts. Please distinguish as well between proprietary and open source database products.

PROPRIETARY DATABASES
TURNOVER for 2008 (in EUR '000)
EEA		Worldwide
New licenses	Service	New licenses	Service

OPEN SOURCE DATABASES
TURNOVER for 2008 (in EUR '000)
EEA		Worldwide
New licenses	Service	New licenses	Service

20. Please provide information on your units sold of your database products in 2008. Please distinguish between proprietary and open source database products.

PROPRIETARY DATABASES
Units sold in 2008
EEA	Worldwide

OPEN SOURCE DATABASES
TURNOVER for 2008 (in EUR '000)
EEA	Worldwide

C. Competitive assessment

Competitors

21. In the context of tender processes and the conclusion of commercial agreements, which databases do you usually face as competitors? Which databases do you consider as being close competitors to your offering (please list the competitor for each of your product and indicate whether their products are proprietary or open source)? Please list the competitors form the closest competitor to the more distant.

22. Please – to your best knowledge – list Oracle's main competitors in the database market, including yourself. Please indicate whether there are different characteristics/abilities between these competitors. Please rate for each company from 1= "closest" to 10= "less closely" the intensity of competition) and give reasons for this rating. Please specify in which geographic area these competitors are active (e.g. worldwide, EEA, national markets).

Company	Characteristics and abilities	Intensity of competition	Reasons for rating	Geographic area

23. Please – to your best knowledge – list Sun's (MySQL) main competitors in the database market, including yourself. Please indicate whether there are different characteristics/abilities between these competitors. Please rate for each company from 1= "closest" to 10= "less closely" the intensity of competition) and give reasons for this rating. Please specify in which geographic area these competitors are active (e.g. worldwide, EEA, national markets).

Company	Characteristics and abilities	Intensity of competition	Reasons for rating	Geographic area

24. Do you consider that Oracle's database offerings, in particular its database 11g, and Sun's MySQL database offerings constitute direct substitutes from a customer's perspective (taking into account in particular pricing and functionality), and that they would act as direct competitors on the market? Please elaborate.

25. Do you consider that the Oracle database 11g Express Edition constitutes a substitute to MySQL? Please reason your view.

26. Do you consider that the Oracle database 11g Standard Edition constitutes a substitute to MySQL? Please reason your view.

27. Do you consider that the Berkeley DB constitutes a substitute to MySQL? Please reason your view.

28. It has been stated that MySQL is rather complementary to Oracle's database offerings than competing with Oracle's databases. Do you agree? Please reason your view.

29. If you are a company providing technical support for MySQL, in your opinion, what will be the impact of the transaction on your possibilities to provide technical support? Do you expect that you will be able to continue to provide technical support for MySQL if the proposed transaction is implemented? Under which conditions would it be impossible for you to continue to provide technical support? Are you in any contractual relationship with Sun for providing technical support for MySQL? If yes, could you please indicate the terms (e.g. length)?

30. Please indicate whether there are new entrants in the database market that may grow into future strong competitors (in particular open source offerings).

"Forking"

31. Please explain the process of "forking" MySQL with a view to entering the database market, especially as regards:

a) existing technical, legal and other obstacles, in particular relating to the MySQL trademark,

b) additional technical, legal and other obstacles Sun could pose to prevent a "forked" version from entering the market, in particular relating to Sun's partner agreements

c) the costs incurred upon an unsuccessful attempt to enter the market,

d) the time consumed by developing a "fork" and successfully entering the market.

32. In your view, would Oracle, as a result of the proposed transaction, have the ability to prevent forks of MySQL from being developed and from entering the database market?

33. It has been stated that the open source nature of MySQL eliminates potential for anti-competitive effects. Do you agree with this statement? Please reason your view.

34. In your opinion, how important is it for a company offering open source databases to also have the ability to issue commercial licenses, i.e. to apply the dual licensing approach chosen by Sun for MySQL? What are the advantages of such an approach?

35. Do you consider that offerings like Maria DB have the potential to grow as competitive force in the market for databases? Would such growth be accelerated if Oracle failed to continue developing MySQL or if it stopped the MySQL open source offering?

Future development of MySQL

36. Absent the transaction, how would you expect Sun to develop MySQL in comparison to Oracle's database products? Please elaborate.

37. Absent the transaction, how would you expect the competitive relationship between Oracle and Sun as regards database offerings to change in the next 3-5 years? Please elaborate, especially as regards pricing and functionality.

38. In your view, has Oracle's acquisition of Berkeley DB lead to:

¨ Improvement of the product;

¨ No change of the product;

¨ Degradation of the product.

Migration of customers

39. To the best of your knowledge, will Oracle, as a result of the proposed transaction, be in a position to lock in customers of MySQL to Oracle's offering by directing MySQL customers wishing to switch to other databases towards Oracle's proprietary database offerings? Which would be the mechanisms that Oracle could use to direct customers wishing to switch? Are you also able to offer support services to MySQL that would direct customers wishing to switch to certain specific proprietary databases by facilitating the switching?

40. Please also elaborate on how a strategy to "lock in" customers would affect Oracle's/Sun's profits, your database software business and the pricing of database software and related maintenance services.

Vertical aspects

41. To the best of your knowledge, do you consider that Oracle, as a result of the proposed transaction, would be capable of modifying the operating system "Solaris" in a way that degrades its interoperability with database software other than Oracle's or Sun's?

42. Please also elaborate on how such changes to Solaris would affect Oracle's/Sun's profits, your database software business and the pricing of database software and related maintenance services.

D. Conclusion

43. Please describe in detail ALL possible effects and impacts of the proposed transaction on competition in the database market (segment) concerning e.g.:

a) your business

b) your product offerings

c) prices of your and other product offerings

d) product innovation

e) any other parameter?

Please give reasons for your answer.

44. Please provide any other comments that you may have on the proposed transaction.

***

Please remember to provide a non-confidential version of your reply!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

---

[1] Cf. Article 17 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 447/98 of 1 March 1998.

[2] The EEA comprises the 27 Member States forming the European Union and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Customer survey

I. INTRODUCTION

On 30 July 2009, Oracle Corporation (hereafter named “Oracle”) notified to the European Commission under the Merger Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004), their intention to acquire SUN Microsystems Inc. (hereafter named "Sun"; both Oracle and Sun will be named hereafter "the parties").

Under the Merger Regulation, the Commission has to assess the proposed transaction's impact on competition. To that end, it must examine in an in depth manner the structure of the markets in which the activities of the above‑mentioned companies overlap or are related to each other. It must gather data on the subject from the parties, but also from other market players, in particular customers and competitors.

Your detailed reply to the questionnaire is very important for us in examining the notified transaction. We would be grateful for any additional remarks you may wish to make concerning the potential impact of the proposed transaction on competition. Please feel free to send us any documentation, studies, articles, etc. on the relevant markets, which in your view may help us in our analysis. If you consider any of the questions irrelevant, please say so and give your reasons.

Please reply for all the companies in your group. With respect to financial data, please give the figures for 2008 (alternatively 2007 if no figures exist yet for 2008) and express monetary amounts, unless requested otherwise, in thousands of Euro.

All information which is clearly marked “confidential” will be treated as such[1]. You are kindly requested to provide a non-confidential version of your reply.

The Commission is aware that answering the questionnaire may involve a considerable amount of work. We thank you in advance for your assistance and co-operation. If you have questions about the questionnaire, please contact any of the case handlers:

- Mr Adrian LÜBBERT (phone: +32-2-298.47.60; adrian.luebbert@ec.europa.eu), or

- Ms Vera POZZATO (phone: +32-2-299.30.12; vera.pozzato@ec.europa.eu) or

- Ms Sabine CROME (phone: +32-2-299.39.46; sabine.crome@ec.europa.eu or

If you have any general queries or if you would like to receive the electronic copy of this questionnaire, please contact the case secretariat:

- Ms Marianna CSEH (phone: +32-2-298.42.37; marianna.cseh@ec.europa.eu).

We would encourage you to complete the questionnaire in electronic form. If you so decide, please send an e-mail with the following text in the subject line of the e-mail “Case COMP/M.5529 Oracle/Sun ‑ Request Q-cust Databases in e-format” to the case secretariat from which you will receive the electronic copy. If you so request, you will receive a confirmation of receipt of your submission.

Please return your reply at the latest by 13 August 2009.

II. GENERAL DETAILS

1. Please give the contact details of the person we can contact in case we have questions on your reply:

Company:
Contact person:		Phone:
Position		Fax:
Address:		Country:
Company web-site:

2. Please give a brief description of your company's business, including in particular, the products and services sold by your company.

3. Please indicate your net turnover in 2008 (or 2007 if not available for 2008 yet) in million EUR achieved world-wide and in the EEA[2] (i.e. total sales after deduction of value added tax).

III. QUESTIONNAIRE

A. Market definition

Relevant product market

In order to examine the competitive effects of the proposed transaction on the market, the Commission is required to define the “relevant product markets”. A relevant product market comprises all those products and/or services which are regarded as interchangeable or substitutable by the customers, by reason of the products’ characteristics, prices and intended use.

Oracle's and Sun's activities overlap in database products, more precisely in relational database management systems. Databases are software programmes designed to organise, store, analyse and retrieve information.

4. Please list the database products in use by your company in the table below (indicating the name of the database, the name of the supplier, whether it is open-source or proprietary, the name of the company offering support for each database, the date of purchase and the operating system on which the database is running). Please describe the purpose for which your company purchased the database products and the main characteristics of the products (technical characteristics, efficiency, cost, suitability for any specific application, etc).

Database	Supplier	Open-Source (Yes/No)	Support supplier	Date of purchase	Operating System	Purpose and main characteristics

5. Does you company purchase technical support for:

¨ MySQL;

¨ Other open source databases (please specify).

6. If your answer to the previous question is yes, from which company do you purchase technical support?

7. Do you use databases from different suppliers alongside each other, in particular proprietary databases alongside open source databases? Please elaborate. For which purpose do you use these databases?

8. Please indicate the cost of owning the databases listed above and the support costs associated with them (indicate 2008 payments).

Database	Cost of license in 2008 (€)	Cost of support in 2008 (€)

9. For each of the products listed above, please indicate the competing products that would be suitable for replacing your current database products. Please describe briefly their main characteristics (strengths and weaknesses) and the factors that make the competing products suitable to replace the products you sourced instead.

10. Please explain whether your company has switched between different database products in the past and specify to/from which products.

11. If your answer to the above question is positive, please indicate the factor(s) that led you to the switching:

¨ relative price variations,

¨ comparatively better offer from a competitor,

¨ comparatively better product characteristics (better quality, higher efficiency),

¨ marketing campaign,

¨ product A unavailability,

¨ other, please specify:

12. More generally, what are the costs and the difficulties associated with switching databases?

13. How do you take purchasing decisions for databases? Which of the following statements is the most appropriate?

¨ Your company decides to purchase databases that best meets its needs AND is compatible with the existing server infrastructure and server operating system; or

¨ Your company decides to purchase those databases that best meet its needs AND THEN adapt its server and server operating system to the newly purchased database if necessary; or

¨ Your company usually takes purchase decision about server, server operating system and database at the same moment; or

¨ Other (please specify)

14. Is the choice of a database product dictated by the operating system(s) in use in your company? Are there databases that you could not consider as substitutes because the operating systems in use in your company limit your choice?

15. In your view, do all database products compete with each other?

Yes No

Please give reasons for your answer.

16. If you are of the view that only certain database products compete with each other, please specify how you would delineate categories of database products that compete with each other and give reasons.

17. In your view, do open source database products and proprietary database products compete with each other?

Yes No

Please give reasons for your answer. If your answer is yes, please specify for which uses open source database products and proprietary database products compete.

Relevant geographic market

A relevant geographic market comprises the area in which the conditions of competition are sufficiently homogenous and which can be distinguished from neighbouring geographic areas because, in particular, the conditions of competition are appreciably different in those areas.

18. Do you see any reason why the geographical dimension of the market for databases should be less than worldwide? Please explain.

19. When selling a database, are there any geographical restrictions on the database license? Are prices different from one country/region to the other?

B. Competitive assessment

Competitors

20. Please indicate by order of importance your five main suppliers for databases.

21. Please – to your best knowledge – list Oracle's main competitors in the database market. Please indicate whether there are different characteristics/abilities between these competitors. Please rate for each company from 1= "closest" to 10= "less closely" the intensity of competition) and give reasons for this rating. Please specify in which geographic area these competitors are active (e.g. worldwide, EEA, national markets).

Company	Characteristics and abilities	Intensity of competition	Reasons for rating	Geographic area

22. Please – to your best knowledge – list Sun's (MySQL) main competitors in the database market. Please indicate whether there are different characteristics/abilities between these competitors. Please rate for each company from 1= "closest" to 10= "less closely" the intensity of competition) and give reasons for this rating. Please specify in which geographic area these competitors are active (e.g. worldwide, EEA, national markets).

Company	Characteristics and abilities	Intensity of competition	Reasons for rating	Geographic area

23. For each of the databases in use in your company (as listed in question 4), at the time your company made the purchasing decision, please indicate in the table below which other competing databases you were also considering purchasing. Please indicate the reasons why you chose the database you are currently using.

Database in use	Competing databases considered at the time of purchase	Reasons for the choice

24. Do you consider that Oracle's database offerings, in particular its database 11g, and Sun's MySQL database offerings constitute direct substitutes (taking into account in particular pricing and functionality), and that they act as direct competitors on the market? Please elaborate.

25. It has been stated that MySQL is rather complementary to Oracle's database offerings than competing with Oracle's databases (i.e. in the sense that MySQL and Oracle targets different needs). Do you agree? Please reason your view.

26. Do you or would you use Oracle databases and Sun databases side by side for similar tasks? Please elaborate.

27. Do you or would you use Oracle databases and Sun databases side by side in your company for different tasks? Please elaborate.

28. Do you have plans to change your database products? If yes, please elaborate what are the reasons for the change.

29. If your company purchases technical support for MySQL from Sun and in case Oracle, after the transaction, increased prices for technical support of MySQL, would you be prepared to switch to another company providing such technical support services? If yes, to which company would you be most likely to switch?

30. If your company purchases technical support for MySQL from a company other than Sun, in your opinion, what will be the impact of the transaction on your possibilities to purchase technical support from a company other than Oracle? Do you expect that you will be able to continue?

31. Please indicate whether there are new entrants in the database market that may grow into future strong competitors to the current suppliers (in particular open source offerings).

Commercial MySQL license

32. Have you purchased a commercial MySQL licence? If yes, please describe the purpose for which your company purchased the commercial license. Why would a GNU General Public License v.2 not be sufficient for your purposes?

33. Please indicate the duration of your company's contract for the commercial MySQL license.

34. Could your company replace the commercial MySQL license by another commercial database license available on the market?

35. What would be the impact on your company if a commercial MySQL license would not be available anymore?

"Forking"

36. Please explain the process of "forking" MySQL with a view to entering the database market, especially as regards:

a) existing technical, legal and other obstacles, in particular relating to the MySQL trademark,

b) additional technical, legal and other obstacles Sun could pose to prevent a "forked" version from entering the market, in particular relating to Sun's partner agreements

c) the costs incurred upon an unsuccessful attempt to enter the market,

d) the time consumed by developing a "fork" and successfully entering the market.

37. In your view, would Oracle, as a result of the proposed transaction, have the ability to prevent forks of MySQL from being developed and from entering the database market?

38. It has been stated that the open source nature of MySQL eliminates potential for anti-competitive effects. Do you agree with this statement? Please reason your view.

39. In your opinion, how important is it for a company offering open source databases to also have the ability to issue commercial licenses, i.e. to apply the dual licensing approach chosen by Sun for MySQL? What are the advantages of such an approach?

40. Do you consider that offerings like Maria DB have the potential to grow as competitive force in the market for databases? Would such growth be accelerated if Oracle failed to continue developing MySQL or if it stopped the MySQL open source offering? In particular, would your company consider using Maria DB?

Future development of MySQL

41. Absent the transaction, how would you expect Sun to develop MySQL in comparison to Oracle's database products? Please elaborate.

42. Absent the transaction, how would you expect the competitive relationship between Oracle and Sun as regards database offerings to change in the next 3-5 years? Please elaborate, especially as regards pricing and functionality.

43. Does your company purchase any open source products from Oracle? If yes, how do you assess Oracle's support for and commitment to this open source product?

44. In your view, has Oracle's acquisition of Berkeley DB lead to:

¨ Improvement of the product;

¨ No change of the product;

¨ Degradation of the product.

Migration of customers

45. To the best of your knowledge, will Oracle, as a result of the proposed transaction, be in a position to lock in customers of MySQL to Oracle's offering by directing MySQL customers wishing to switch to other databases towards Oracle's proprietary database offerings? Which would be the mechanisms that Oracle could use to direct customers wishing to switch?

46. Please also elaborate on how a strategy to "lock in" customers would affect Oracle's/Sun's profits, your database software business and the pricing of database software and related maintenance services.

Vertical aspects

47. To the best of your knowledge, do you consider that Oracle, as a result of the proposed transaction, would be capable of modifying the operating system "Solaris" in a way that degrades its interoperability with database software other than Oracle's or Sun's?

48. Please also elaborate on how such changes to Solaris would affect Oracle's/Sun's profits, your database software business and the pricing of database software and related maintenance services.

49. If Oracle purchases Sun, the newly formed company will have the possibility to offer to its customers a fully integrated stack, from hardware to middleware and enterprise application software, and including operating systems and databases. Please indicate whether you consider that Oracle/Sun will be in a position to foreclose its competitors in the different layers of the stack thanks to this characteristic. What impact could such vertical integration have for customers?

D. Conclusion

50. Please describe in detail ALL possible effects and impacts of the proposed transaction on competition in the database market (segment) concerning e.g.:

a) your business

b) prices for database products

c) product innovation

d) any other parameter?

Please give reasons for your answer.

51. Please provide any other comments that you may have on the proposed transaction.

***

Please remember to provide a non-confidential version of your reply!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

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[1] Cf. Article 17 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 447/98 of 1 March 1998.

[2] The EEA comprises the 27 Member States forming the European Union and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.