Oracle gets more time to respond to EC antitrust concerns

In today's podcast: Oracle gets more time to respond to EC antitrust concerns; Barnes & Noble says Nook holiday orders sold out; and FDA shuts down 90 drug Web sites.

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Oracle and Sun Microsystems have been granted an extra week to defend their planned US$7 billion merger in front of European regulators, the European Commission said Friday. Earlier this month the Commission, Europe's top antitrust regulator, issued formal objections to the deal, arguing that it posed a threat to competition in the market for database software. The deadline for a final ruling has been put back to Jan. 27 from Jan. 19, which amounts to six additional working days for Oracle to win over the skeptical regulator.

Just two days after Sony said that its wireless e-reader, the Daily Edition, might not make it to buyers before the end of the year, Barnes & Noble said its Nook e-reader is sold out. The Nook hasn't started shipping yet, but the bookseller now says that preorders have consumed stock available for the holidays. Anyone ordering the Nook now will have to wait until after Jan. 4, when Barnes & Noble expects to ship additional readers. Anyone who has already ordered the device will get it in time for the holidays.

About 90 Web sites hosted in the U.S. that sold unlicensed or misbranded drugs have been taken offline following warning letters from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an agency spokeswoman said Friday. The FDA sent 22 warning letters last week to ISPs, Web site operators and domain-name registrars seeking the shut down of 136 sites that sell drugs in violation of U.S. law. Many of the sites would sell medication without requiring a prescription. Other violations included advertising drugs that were stated as FDA approved but have not been.

Mobile phone giant Nokia on Friday said it will cut up to 330 people from its research and development staff. The changes are expected to affect up to 230 employees at Nokia's site in Oulu, Finland, and about 100 employees based in Copenhagen. The Finnish company has more than 17,000 people working in research and development

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.