Back Story (since I apparently missed it)<p>HP is buying Autonomy for 10+B. Many analysts feel this is over priced, and on Oracle's earnings call Larry Ellison couldn't help but get a jab in at HP by saying that they (Mark Hurd ironically) told Autonomy they were overpriced at their current 6+B Market Cap when Autonomy went to Oracle looking for a suitor.<p>Autonomy CEO then said "WTF we never talked to Oracle about being purchased".<p>Then this.
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.<p>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?
Possible scenario for Oracle actions:<p>A) ridicule HP into dropping Autonomy bid<p>B) because of A the stock price of HP drops significantly<p>C) Oracle buys HP<p>D) Mark Hurd gets his HP executive washroom key back.
The most interesting thing about this story is just how poor that Powerpoint presentation is.<p>It's professionally put together, but if I someone tried to use these as <i>slides</i> during a presentation I'd want to tear my eyes out.
Other HN discussion on the same topic : <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3051366" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3051366</a>
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 =)
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.
The funniest part of the press release for me is the "About Oracle" section:<p>"Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company."<p>Put it on every release, it will become true? Or something?
Of course, if you look at the other side of the story, Oracle is said to be tossing lots of BS here.<p>See: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/29/autonomy-oracle" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/29/autonomy-orac...</a><p>Slides prepared by Qatalyst in January, meeting between Autonomy and Hurd as an introduction, not a sales pitch.
From the statement:<p>> Mr. Lynch then accused of Oracle of being ‘inaccurate’. Either Mr. Lynch has a very poor memory or he’s lying.<p>Wow, things are really getting dirty between Oracle, HP, and Autonomy. Wonder will this affect HP's embattled share price further?
I pretty much expect this would be Oracle's response, they tend not to let others have the last word on such things.<p>It is pretty interesting to me that during the SPARC SuperCluster event, Ellison did not mention HP, but instead focussed heavily on IBM's server.
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.