This is just too funny!
When Oracle, and that bunch of miscreant companies, using their army of lobbyists bribers rushed over to the US Department of Justice in 1996-1997, they found a kind ear in the form of that troglodyte, Joel Klein. Together, they hatched a scheme to hobble one of the brightest American companies of that time, Microsoft. Quickly dubbed the NOISE Coalition (Novell, Oracle, IBM, Sun, & Everyone else), the group initially succeeded in laying bare the innards of Microsoft’s increasing insularity.
For Microsoft at this time had become complacent, and incredibly sloth-like in innovation and production. Apart from the Server group, Microsoft’s insidious rest-and-vest culture had unfortunately permeated the product development ranks to the stage where products stagnated. Remember IE6, Microsoft’s ‘last browser’? Windows XP, held together with rubber bands, and vilified by all except the retards that populate the ‘editorial’ halls at Infoworld? Those products were the bile that Microsoft was producing during that era of self-satisfaction.
However, in what should go down as perhaps the sweetest irony in the annals of American, and indeed, global business history, the antitrust case ended up making Microsoft a stronger, much more agile,and formidable competitor.
Delicious, sweet, sweet irony!
Microsoft has become a more nimble, focused, and innovative company as a result.
What about Microsoft’s protagonists, the NOISE coalition?
Cribbing from my earlier post here – contents below, I find that I had forgotten to add Nokia, which joined these bunch of corporate numbnuts, and Joel Klein. So I will:
- Nokia: at the start of the Windows Vista™ era, Novell had fallen so far on hard times that it entered into a non-aggression pact with Microsoft, effectively becoming a Microsoft oblast. Nokia, riding high on astute – at that time – product creation, decided to join the denizens on NOISE, replacing Novell. And where is Nokia today? Back on its heels, having missed the Smartphone revolution. Technically, they didn’t, but since no one I know outside the Nordic countries has ever seen, or worse, even want to use the Symbian-based N-series of Nokia devices, it suffers the fate of that giant Iroko tree that falls alone the forest: did it really fall, or did it even exist? In that interregnum, Apple came in, and cleaned their clock. Android is about to do the same as well. As for Nokia, it is currently engaged in a search for intelligent life in the Smartphone galaxy by teaming up with Intel to produce a Smartphone OS with the silly name of Meego. Their search continues even as I write this.
- As for Joel Klein, he went from attempting to destroy Microsoft to attempting to do the same to the New York City Public Schools. The jury is still out on his floundering there.
Back to recent times…
Last week, the US Department of Justice, in a move that helps cement the feeling that justice is truly blind, brought an action against its former BFF, Oracle, under the False Claims Act, claiming the Oracle had engaged in systemic and systematic fraud against the Federal (US) government for an eight-year period spanning 1998 through 2006.
In what the DOJ must have found particularly invidious, this fraudulent activity was taking place even as Oracle was whining to the DOJ about Microsoft’s antitrust violations!
The brass of ORCL, eh?
Can you imagine how miffed AG Holder must have felt when given the files to approve the lawsuit?
Now, however this shakes out, I am looking forward to seeing if Oracle can continue to execute when faced with multiple distractions:
- Competition from SAP in BI
- Litigation with SAP
- Competition with Microsoft in SQL databases
- Competition with IBM in mainframe databases and hardware
- Co-opetition with HP in high-end hardware
- and, the big Kahuna: the potential indigestion from the acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
As to be expected, Oracle vows to ‘vigorously defend itself against these false claims’.
Erhh, good luck, Oracle.
Until then though, Oracle is still a stock to own.
The NOISE Coalition:
Novell: between Novell & SCO, I don’t know which is the worst company. Novell might still be around, but they are on a DNR (do not resuscitate) footing with investors.
Oracle: This is the only company of the group still with increasing sales, margins. However, the forthcoming indigestion from the JAVA acquisition and the transition from a pure-play software company to a hardware and software OEM makes then a hold. At least for me.
IBM: the grandpappy here. $100 billion plus in sales, and this behemoth does not move me.
Sun: subsumed into Oracle.It was painful to see that buffoonish, blustery Scott McNealy swear fealty to Larry Ellison publicly at Oracle OpenWorld (what a disingenuous mane, eh?). This, after riding what was once one of the greatest American firms into the ground. Mitigating factor for McNealy was that he didn’t appoint Zander as his successor. What a trainwreck that would have been. Just ask MOTO holders! (At least J Schwartz tried harder. Over his head, but trying harder!)
Everyone Else: to this crowd, add Apple and Google. Former friends, these guys are so in conflict, that it brings to mind that Michael Douglas/Glenn close adultery flick, Fatal Attraction.
Original link from Datamation
