An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment on the issue. Of Oracle's chief competitors, Microsoft declined comment and IBM did not immediately return a request for comment.

Experts cite a plethora of reasons why the deal doesn't create a database monopoly.

For one, MySQL, despite its wild popularity, won't add much to Oracle's revenues.

Oracle reaped $8.34 billion from database sales in 2007, giving it 37.6% of the $22.2 billion global market, according to IDC. The 2008 figures are not yet available, IDC said.

MySQL's sales, meanwhile, were just $38 million in 2007, ranking it just 19th in the market, according to IDC. The open source database placed behind a plethora of unheralded database vendors, such as Siemens, Unisys, Hitachi, even Apple Inc., whose Filemaker personal database had triple MySQL's revenue.