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Oracle hires HP's former chief Mark Hurd Credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser/Files By Megan Davies and Ritsuko Ando NEW YORK | Tue Sep 7, 2010 9:32am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Silicon Valley technology giant Oracle Corp has hired Mark Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co who resigned amid a scandal, as president. Hurd, a close friend of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will replace Charles Phillips, who has resigned, Oracle said in a statement on Monday. Phillips was co-president alongside Safra Catz, who remains in her role. Ellison had slammed HP's decision to oust Hurd, calling the actions of HP's...

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux, says Oracle's move is "going to be a significant setback for their relationship with the broader open source community." Before it was purchased by Oracle, Sun Microsystems enjoyed a strong relationship with the open source community, particularly for its Java programming language, which the company evolved over time to adapt to an open source framework. But last week Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) surprised the open source community with a patent infringement suit against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), over the search giant's use of Java in Android, its open source mobile operating system. Datamation reports on...

Two Silicon Valley heavyweights are about to reenact the Java wars: this time, in a court room. Oracle issued a press release late Thursday saying it has filed suit against Google for infringing on copyrights and patents related to Java, which Oracle acquired along with Sun Microsystems earlier this year. The terse release claimed Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property." A copy of the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, says that "Android (including without limitation the Dalvik VM and the Android software development kit) and devices...

BERLIN - Some Germans are calling for a public roasting of the oracle octopus who correctly picked the winner of all six of their national soccer team's World Cup matches -- including a bitter defeat to Spain on Wednesday. Paul, a two-year-old octopus in a German aquarium, turned into a global celebrity for his uncanny ability to predict the winner of all Germany's matches -- even a group stage defeat to Serbia and an ousting by Spain in the semi-finals.... Not an ordinarily superstitious people, Germans became believers in Paul's possible psychic powers. The country was shocked and distraught when...

Just a day after several media sites, including this one, had Larry Ellison minutes away from a microphone to announce he was going to buy the Golden State Warriors-- came the news that the deal is off. Instead, Comcast Sports Net, the Bay Area News Group, and CNBC are reporting that Joe Lacob, managing partner at private equity firm Kleiner Perkins, and Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment and producer of "Batman," have won the bid for the team. Their winning bid, according to CNBC, was a record $450 million. That was apparently enough cash to cause Ellison to fold...

Your long, tightwad-ownership nightmare is reportedly over, Warriors fans. The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that software tycoon Larry Ellison has won the bidding process and will soon be announced as the new owner of the Golden State Warriors. KNBR and the Chronicle are both reporting the official announcement will come by the close of business today. The dollar amount of Ellison's winning bid is not yet public, but the Oakland Tribune reports that he beat out a $350 million offer from 24-Hour Fitness owner Mark Mastrov. Ellison has long been the Bay Area's favorite obnoxious and ruthless billionaire. His...

Spain worried about safety of new world star Paul the Octopus Posted : Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:42:23 GMT By : Wolfgang Dahlmann Oberhausen, Germany - Paul the Octopus has turned into a global superstar revolving around the 2010 World Cup, with top political leaders in Spain even worried about the oracle mussel-eater's safety. /snip Two glass cubes are baited with mussels and marked with flags of Germany and Uruguay. The mussel Paul chooses first is viewed by his handlers as his prediction. While Spanish football supporters are in heaven about La Roja reaching their first World Cup final, politicians...

A lot of people believe that Oracle last week left no doubt that it will wield MySQL as a potent weapon to fight Microsoft for database market share. The company announced several new MySQL products at a conference in California and reaffirmed its commitment to the open-source software it acquired from Sun Microsystems earlier this year. As reported by Reuters, "In a bid to woo customers from rival Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp will boost investment in the widely used MySQL open-source database." A ZDNet blogger said Oracle MySQL head honcho Edward Screven noted that "more customers deploy MySQL on Windows...

OpenOffice 3.2 is available for download. Improvements in the latest release of the open source office suite include faster start-ups, improved compatibility with other office programs, and several new features (with special attention to the Calc spreadsheet program.) At the same time, the OpenOffice.org team is celebrating its tenth anniversary and a claimed total 300 million downloads of the office software since its initial launch. They say that just over a year since its launch, OpenOffice 3 has logged over one third of those downloads from the central server alone. (Thanks in a large part to Germans, Czechs, and Poles,...

Click Link www.sun.com sigh....

Obama economic advisor and Oracle tech exec Charles Phillips allegedly lied to his mistress. When they starting dating in 2001, Phillips, 50, told YaVaughnie Wilkins he was separated. Two years later, he told her the divorce had been finalized. Making $20M a year, he whisked Wilkins around the world and in 2008 moved her into an $11M San Francisco mansion, near his wife's $6M spread. Jilted Wilkins had billboards erected near Times Square and Atlanta, displaying the two lovers, and directed onlookers to a Web site which chronicles their love affair.

Oracle president Charles Phillips' dirty laundry hung up in Times SquareBy Patrick May Updated: 01/23/2010 11:33:54 AM PST Their ill-fated romance seemed to cry out for a tabloid headline: TECH TITAN BURNED IN BIG APPLE BY JILTED GAL PAL After days of thickening innuendo across the Internet, Oracle co-president and Obama adviser Charles Phillips acknowledged Friday that he had had a long affair with the woman whose smiling mug was plastered beside his all week on New York City billboards. The one overlooking Times Square stretched three-stories high and featured the married former U.S. Marine captain with YaVaughnie Wilkins, a...

Reporting from San Francisco - A prominent Silicon Valley executive with ties to the Obama administration has admitted to an extramarital affair after his former mistress plastered romantic pictures of the two of them on giant billboards in three major cities. "I had an 8½-year serious relationship with YaVaughnie Wilkins," said Charles E. Phillips, co-president of Oracle Corp. and a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. "The relationship with Ms. Wilkins has since ended, and we both wish each other well." Wilkins, a writer and actress, this week had a three-story-tall sign put up near Times Square in...

On first glance, it could be the ultimate Valentine's Day card -- a gigantic billboard that towers over New York's Times Square, featuring a happy couple with the text: "You are my soulmate forever, Charles & YaVaughnie." But as every scorned lover knows, looks can be deceiving. This billboard -- which also has gone up in Atlanta and San Francisco -- is the ultimate act of revenge -- a very public retaliation by a dumped mistress aimed at a very wealthy, and married, businessman who is an adviser to President Obama. YaVaughnie Wilkins posted the signs after she learned that...

John Kerry, Orrin Hatch and 57 other senators have written to the European Commission accusing it of taking too long to approve Oracle's takeover of Sun in order to deliberately damage US business. In an open letter Senator John Kerry (Mass) said: "The EC is within its sovereign rights to set the rules for operation in its market [thanks John], but with our Department of Justice having made a compelling case that the merger does not pose a threat to competition, it is fair to ask the EC for the basis on which a delay on decision making is warranted...

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison commissioned the fabricators at Kirkham Motorsports to build the ultimate, cost-is-no-object roadster. After years of labor, they've completed the all-billet aluminum Cobra. Click "more" to see them build one of the most spectacular custom cars ever.

In recent quarters Oracle has been taking aim at Salesforce.com, noting that its Siebel On Demand was poaching customers. On Thursday it was Salesforce’s turn to return fire. Following Salesforce’s fiscal second quarter earnings, CEO Marc Benioff, as chatty as ever, took aim at his trash talking nemesis, Oracle chief Larry Ellison. Benioff said on a conference call: I am excited to welcome back Success Factors to the Salesforce.com family. Success Factors dropped Oracle On Demand after the application failed to deliver and sales reps pleaded to return to Salesforce. When sales teams are demanding your application to support their...

Sun Microsystems Inc. on Tuesday updated guidance for what looks to be its final quarter as an independent company and set the date when shareholders will vote on its sale to Oracle Corp. The Santa Clara computer company said it expects to lose between 24 cents and 34 cents in the quarter ended June 30 on revenue of between $2.6 billion and $2.7 billion. In the same quarter last year, Sun reported a loss of 12 cents a share on $3.8 billion in revenue. Adjusting for one-time events, Sun (NASDAQ:JAVA) said it expects a loss of between 6 cents and...

Oracle Corp reported quarterly earnings above expectations as the No. 3 software maker's profit margin hit a record thanks to robust growth in its maintenance business, sending shares up 2.7 percent. The company run by billionaire Larry Ellison also reported a smaller-than-expected drop in new software sales and said it grabbed market share from SAP in certain segments -- signs that Oracle may be weathering the downturn better than rivals. "We've been able to push through the economic situation rather well and I have to tell you that I still see the pipeline growing rather significantly," Oracle President Safra Catz...

Much to the industry’s surprise, Oracle has bought Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion following the breakdown in talks with IBM. Sun’s future appeared to be uncertain and few expected Oracle to be waiting patiently in the wings (although it does explain why Sun was prepared to walk away from IBM’s offer). There are several good reasons why Oracle wanted Sun… * Sun’s hardware and backup solutions could be good for Oracle’s software * the Java programming language * VirtualBox Virtual Machine software * OpenOffice * and MySQL - the world’s most popular open-source database. Whilst MySQL and Oracle are not...