Why does Oracle care so much about this? Autonomy shopped themselves around and Oracle turned them down. Now Oracle wants to hurt Autonomy because a competitor bought them. I guess all is fair in M&A, but this just seems like a stupid spat.
I'm guessing it's mostly Mark Hurd (Oracle president and ex-HP CEO) trying to look good by pointing out that he did refuse to buy Autonomy because the price he was discussing with them was overpriced in his opinion whereas HP bought them for almost twice the price.
It's basically Mark Hurd getting back at HP in the most pathetic way I've ever seen.
I find it ridiculous that companies operating at this level waste their time with things like this when they clearly have bigger issues on their hands. No wonder Oracle is struggling if this is where they are focused.
I find it ridiculous that companies operating at this level waste their time with things like this when they clearly have bigger issues on their hands. No wonder Oracle is struggling if this is where they are focused.
Is Oracle struggling? They certainly aren't struggling to make profit.
If only Mr. Lynch had just come out and said, "yes, we also went to Oracle to see if they might be interested". Then he would have had much less trouble =)
I forget where, but I once read an article suggesting that one of the big problems Microsoft has faced in the past 10 years is that, after the DoJ suit and the ruling of it as an abusive monopoly by Judge Jackson, they missed out on a lot of good new developers simply because they didn't want to work for that sort of company.
I don't think my opinions of Larry Ellison had been high for some time, but recent actions and publishing this sort of press release hardly raises them. Perhaps this will be the final downfall of Oracle; that their reputation in the tech community so precedes them that they run out of willing labour and / or partners?
I find it ridiculous that companies operating at this level waste their time with things like this when they clearly have bigger issues on their hands. No wonder Oracle is struggling if this is where they are focused.
Is Oracle struggling? They certainly aren't struggling to make profit.
New software license sales and renewals are both down year-over-year as a percentage of overall sales. It might just be a blip, but I read it as a weakness in their core business. I think the size of the enterprise segment is shrinking - as Andreesen pointed out recently, it was pretty common ten years ago for startups to sink tons of cash into Oracle licenses. Nowadays, it doesn't happen at all. Internet-scale is no longer equivalent to enterprise scale, and less companies are buying Oracle as a result. Elsewhere, government sales are slowing as a result of global fiscal restraint, which basically leaves Fortune 500 to carry the water for Oracle. So yeah, "struggling" might be a bit over-the-top, I certainly wouldn't be betting on Oracle as a breakout story. They are probably a business in decline, and most likely to end up in a similar spot as SGI, DEC and tons of other former enterprise powerhouses that saw their core business diminished by the relentless commoditization that comes with advances in technology.
This is incredibly juvenile and unprofessional. Start acting like grownups.
Agreed. This is a really weird press release for Oracle to serve from their flagship website. Even the Notch v Bethesda back & forth was orders of magnitude more civil…
For one, Notch vs Bethesda operated at several fewer orders of magnitude.
Secondly, Notch is playfully avoiding a lawsuit. Oracle is settling a score.
Possible scenario for Oracle actions: A) ridicule HP into dropping Autonomy bid B) because of A the stock price of HP drops significantly C) Oracle buys HP D) Mark Hurd gets his HP executive washroom key back.
E) HP keeps PSG in house and backs off Enterprise software and services.