Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp. President Safra Catz met with European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes for negotiations over the company’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc., the EU said.

“Kroes expressed her disappointment that Oracle failed to produce, despite repeated requests, either hard evidence that there were no competition problems or a proposal for a remedy to the competition concerns identified by the commission,” Jonathan Todd, Kroes spokesman, said in an interview today in Brussels. “Kroes reiterated to Catz the commission’s willingness to move quickly towards a decision but underlined that a rapid solution lies in Oracle’s hands.”

“This could potentially be dangerous to Oracle and needs to be managed well,” said Michiel Plakman, who helps oversee the equivalent of $150 billion at Rotterdam-based Robeco NV, including Oracle shares. “As long as the deal hasn’t been approved, there will be uncertainty and that could lead to the loss of customers for Sun.”

Sun yesterday said it plans to cut as many as 3,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its workforce, to pare expenses over the next 12 months. Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said Sept. 22 that Sun is losing about $100 million a month as the transaction is delayed by the EU probe.

Gaye Hudson, an Oracle spokeswoman in the U.K., declined to comment. Deborah Hellinger, an Oracle spokeswoman in Redwood City, California, didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment after regular business hours.

In-Depth Review

The European Commission began an in-depth review of the takeover on Sept. 3 and is scheduled to rule by Jan. 19.

Oracle, based in Redwood City, fell 16 cents to $22.03 in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Sun fell 30 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $8.71.

The transaction, which was approved by U.S. authorities in August, involves Oracle acquiring MySQL, the open-source database that Sun bought last year.

In the U.S., the Justice Department scrutinized the deal’s effect on the licensing of Java. The EU has no issues with Java licensing, Todd said last month.

In Europe, the focus is on whether Oracle will have the potential of building a dominant position in the enterprise- server market by acquiring MySQL. Oracle is the market leader in proprietary databases, while Sun’s MySQL database product is the leading open-source database, the commission said.

The investigation followed lobbying by Oracle competitors including SAP AG and Microsoft Corp.

The commission said the database market is “highly concentrated” with Oracle, International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft controlling about 85 percent.

SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, is the world’s biggest maker of business-management applications. Oracle ranks second.

To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Newman in Brussels at Mnewman6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 21, 2009 21:21 EDT