Oracle CEO Mulled Expansion Into Smartphones

Wed, 04/18/2012 - 10:31am
Michael Liedtke, AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wanted to compete against Google's Android software in the smartphone market before deciding instead to sue his potential rival for copyright and patent infringement.



"I had an idea that we could enter the smartphone business and compete with everyone in the smartphone business," Ellison testified under questioning from a Google lawyer. "It was an idea I wanted to explore. We explored it and decided it was a bad idea."

Ellison, a colorful CEO who ranks among the world's richest people, took the stand after Google sought in opening statements to frame the case as Oracle's response to its own failure to build mobile software.

Google CEO Larry Page also took the stand toward the end of Tuesday's session. The trial was expected to last up to 10 weeks.


Although Oracle has spent more money buying other companies, Ellison depicted Java as the company's most cherished prize.

"Of all the things we have ever purchased, by far the most important we ever purchased was Java," Ellison crowed during his roughly 80-minute appearance on the witness stand.

Ellison is renowned for making bombastic statements like that.


With Sun co-founder Scott McNealy standing by his side, Ellison assured the crowd then that he was "excited" and "flattered" about Android's reliance on Java. Ellison hailed his "friends from Google" and said he looked forward to many more mobile devices running on Android.

Before Ellison took the stand Tuesday, Van Nest also tried to persuade the jury that Sun Microsystems had encouraged and endorsed Google's use of Java in Android. That contrasted with opening statements Monday by Oracle lawyer Michael Jacobs, who focused on emails indicating that Google's top executives knew for years that they should be paying to license for some parts of the Java technology that helped create Android.


Android now powers more than 300 million smartphones and tablet computers. Google hasn't specified how much money it makes from the ads and mobile applications sold on Android-powered devices. The company is fighting to keep that figure out of the trial proceedings. U.S. District Judge William Alsup has indicated that he will allow that sensitive information to be publicly revealed if it becomes a point of contention in the trial.

Van Nest told the jury that after it became clear that Google wasn't going to partner with Sun, Google spent hundreds of millions of dollars and devoted thousands of engineering hours to create the 15 million of computer code that guide Android. He said former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz will testify that he fully supported what Google did with Java.

It wasn't until Ellison couldn't figure out how Oracle could get into the smartphone market that the allegations of copyright and patent infringement surfaced, according to Van Nest.

"They want to share Android's profits without having done a thing to bring that about," Van Nest said.


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