Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's Goodbye Letter To European CustomersGlobal CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's Goodbye Letter To European Customers

Dear CIO:

I regret to inform you that as of Dec. 31, Oracle will be suspending our operations in Europe as a consequence of the unfair, unproductive, unreasonable, and unacceptable constraints the European Commission has placed on our ability to conduct our business across the EU.

While we're very grateful for your business and hope to regain it at some time in the future should the EC reverse its restrictive and unfair policies and allow us to deliver the best possible set of products and services to you and other Oracle customers, the EC's unpredictable regulations and ad hoc policies have made it impossible for us to operate effectively across Europe.

Again, while we regret this inconvenience to you, we hope you'll see that the EC has put us in an unwinnable situation, and our only recourse is to redeploy our resources into geographies that offer a more open and rational business environment in which we have some chance for success. Should you wish to voice your opinion on this matter to the the EC, we hope you'll let us know so that we can be ready to resume doing business with you should the opportunity arise.

That prospect is in the hands of the EC, and the EC alone. We have spent six months attempting to comply with every demand and requirement they placed before us, and during that time we have seen the value of the company we're trying to acquire be reduced by $500 million and, even more disturbingly, we have seen several thousand Sun employees lose their jobs because of the EC's intransigence and inflexibility.

We can't operate under the types of stifling limitations and capricious intrusions into the private sector that the EC has been only too willing to make. We hope you will understand that before making this clearly painful decision, we did everything we could—and absorbed a monumental financial expense along the way—to try to make it possible for us to continue to serve you.

We wish you all the best, and should the EC ever come to its senses, we hope to reconnect with you at some point in the future when we can offer you the unmatched set of solutions that the Oracle/Sun combination will be offering across the globe.

Best regards,

Larry Ellison

CEO, Oracle Corp.

That's how I see it. What am I missing? What do you think Oracle's going to do so that it can complete its acquisition of Sun and get on with the next stage of its business?

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