Oracle - Google Android Lawsuit Surfacing Interesting Facts. Open Source Java!

It is fascinating to read about this lawsuit. In an email by Android boss Andy Rubin to Google's Sergey, Larry Page and some other Googlers, reveals that Google could have had an annual Java license for $100 million and the group agreed to decline it. If ever Oracle manages to get a injunction over Android, costs of getting a new license will be million folds of the 100 million.
Another fact that coming out is the SUN proposed  a Redhat style Android distribution with Open Source Java. Yes hind sight is 20/20 but it is not too late to learn more about these facts.It IS fascinating.
Read more at FOSS Patents.

Oracle's Larry Ellison on Our (His) Future

Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison, on his first visit Israel last weekend, told TheMarker that collaborative open source software is nothing to be feared, and mocked the "Google-envy" he said Microsoft was suffering t an event hosted Saturday night by TheMarker, the American Embassy and Oracle Israel.
"I detect Google-envy in Silicon Valley. In fact, the most interesting thing is that Microsoft has Google-envy, which is fascinating, because Microsoft makes more money than Google," Ellison says.
He was visiting Israel with his family, and spoke during a weekend in which he toured the country by helicopter, from Gaza to Lebanon.
He went on to say that Web 2.0 phenomenon is not a passing fad, and postulated that Google isn't a direct rival. He also believes that one day, Oracle will pass Microsoft and become the world's biggest software company.
But I like most about "Oracle" in Larry Ellison when it comes to talk about what he knows;
"Open source is not something to be feared. Open source is something to be explained. Open source wins not because it's open and not because it's free. Open source wins only when it's better," he says.

The Apache web server is currently the most successful open source product in the world," Ellison says. "It displaced Microsoft IIS not because it was free and not because it was open source, but because it was more secure and faster, and more reliable.

"Linux, I believe, is competing very effectively with (Microsoft's) Windows. The thing that's misleading is that for free software to take over - well, the purchase price of software is only about 10 percent of the total cost of ownership of software. So even if the software is free, the most you can save is 10 percent off. Now the question is, what are your other costs of developing applications, of running applications on a daily basis, of dealing with problems when they occur? We think that Oracle is absolutely very competitive with open source," he says.
Read the complete article at Haaretz

Tags: Oracle, Web 2.0, Apache, Linux, Microsoft, Google, Google-envy

Oracle offers to buy BEA

Oracle has offered to acquire Silicon Valley rival BEA Systems for $17 per share, a total of about $6.67 billion in cash.

If consummated, the acquisition could eliminate issues about what BEA will do for future growth while furthering Oracle's years-long effort to consolidate as much of the software industry under its own roof.

"Oracle's...offer to purchase BEA Systems provides a logical conclusion to the questions surrounding the future of BEA," said Technology Business Research analyst Stuart Williams. "Oracle can integrate the BEA technology directly into the core of the Oracle stack, strengthening it, while at the same time removing a competitor and adding close to $1.4 billion in annual revenue to its coffers."

Oracle's offer, made in a Tuesday letter to BEA's board of directors, is a 25 percent premium over BEA's closing price Thursday of $13.62. BEA's shares surged 33 percent, or $4.49, to $18.10 in morning trading Friday.

News com news post

Tags: oracle, bea, soa