Sun Microsystems has said it will cut 3,000 jobs in the next year as it awaits the verdict of an EU probe into a takeover by Oracle¹ Corp.

太阳微系统称，明年将削减3000个工作岗位以等待欧盟关于甲骨文集团收购的调查。

Sun has suffered long-running financial problems

They are the latest in a series of cuts to be made by the firm, which has suffered prolonged（持续很久的） financial woes（悲哀，悲痛）.

Business software firm Oracle has proposed a $7.4bn takeover of computer hardware and software maker² Sun.

The US justice department has given its approval to the deal, agreed in April, but the EU is still investigating.

Last month Oracle said that Sun was losing $100m (£61m) every month as it waited for the probe.

IBM challenge

The EU is concerned that the deal, if approved, could breach³ competition rules, leading to higher prices and less choice for customers.

It is concerned mainly about Oracle having control over Sun's MySQL database business.

EU Competition Commissioner⁴ Neelie Kroes has said the EU is obliged to（被迫做） investigate "when the world's biggest proprietary⁵（专利的） database company proposes to take over the world's leading open-source database company".

But Oracle maintains that MySQL did not compete against each other, and said he would not sell off MySQL to get the deal approved.

The EU has said it will make its final decision by 19 January 2010.

Oracle is looking to strengthen its position against rival IBM, which abandoned its own attempts to buy Sun earlier this year.