Has Oracle's (NASDAQ: ORCL) ambitious acquisition strategy left you feeling a bit uneasy? If so, you're not alone, according to an article by Ashlee Vance at The New York Times. Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems this year and its plans to supply a widening range of enterprise technologies is raising fears that businesses will end up with fewer choices in hardware and software while paying more for them.

"We are becoming an all-Oracle shop, but not by choice," said Maureen Miller, who is in charge of technology infrastructure work at the National Science Foundation. "They bought every company we deal with. And we don't tend to want to put all of our eggs in one basket."

Given the central place of database technology in the enterprise, Oracle has "an unrivaled position of power when dealing with customers," Vance writes. With that leverage, its sales reps have gained "a fearsome reputation as hard-line negotiators determined to squeeze customers."

While customers may be getting nervous about Larry Ellison's growing dominance in the enterprise, the prospect may spur both Oracle and competing vendors to start purchasing more start-up firms to stay ahead of the curve, notes Russell Garland in a (very brief) post at The Wall Street Journal. Venture capital firms stand to win in this race.

For a perspective on the different business cultures at Oracle and Sun, take a look at an interview with Java creator James Gosling, who went to Oracle from Sun during the acquisition. Micromanagement and reduced compensation are among the factors that drove Gosling out, he said in the interview with eWeek's Darryl K. Taft. Not only that, but Gosling said he felt constrained by the very top brass.

"He's the kind of person that just gives me the creeps," he said about Ellison. "All of the senior people at Sun got screwed compensation-wise. Their job titles may have been the same, but their ability to decide anything was just gone."

For more:
- see Ashlee Vance's article at The New York Times
- see Russell Garland's post at The Wall Street Journal
- see Darryl K. Taft's article at eWeek

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