The war of words between Oracle and Hewlett Packard is becoming curiouser and curiouser. It is now a dated story that Mark Hurd was sacked as CEO of HP ostensibly for fudging his expense accounts in trying to mask a graver ethical lapse. This dismissal was characterised as stupid by Oracle's CEO, Larry Ellison who subsequently roped in Hurd as Oracle's President. HP accused Hurd of attracting conflict of interest in view of the possibility of proprietary information on HP's business strategy being misused by Oracle through Hurd.
Oracle fought back by intensifying its legal efforts to nail Leo Apotheker who was recruited by HP in the place of Mark Hurd. Apotheker was working for SAP, the German software behemoth when SAP had admittedly stolen Oracle's software. As if these conflicts of interest are not enough, a new interesting development has now taken place. Joe Nocera, a columnist at NewYork Times has decried HP's injudicious decision to take in Leo Apotheker who had allegedly played an apparently unjustifiable role in the theft of Oracle's software. So far it has been okay as a journalist's espousal of the need for ethical behaviour.
The interesting twist that now emerges as yet another conflict of interest is the information that Nocera's fiancee is the Communications Director of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, the law firm that is advising Oracle in its legal dispute with SAP. Oracle has alleged that Apotheker had a role in software theft.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment