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Ellison Stirs the Pot Over H-P Deal .Article Stock Quotes Comments (21) more
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By BEN WORTHEN
Larry Ellison, Oracle Corp.'s iconoclastic chief executive, has passed up fe
w chances to tweak rival Hewlett-Packard Co. But the verbal potshots this we
ek concerning H-P's $10.3 billion acquisition of Autonomy Corp. reached a ne
w level.
Enlarge Image
CloseGetty Images
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, shown last year.
.The topic this time is whether a deal for Autonomy was pitched to—and reje
cted by—Oracle before H-P struck its deal to buy the U.K. software maker. M
r. Ellison last week suggested H-P was overpaying for Autonomy, saying the c
ompany had been shopped to Oracle earlier this year but was considered too e
xpensive. Mike Lynch, Autonomy's CEO, in an interview Tuesday said his compa
ny was never shopped to Oracle with his knowledge.
By Thursday, however, that question was less interesting than the choice lan
guage the sides were using to make their points in dueling ripostes. On Wedn
esday, Oracle issued Wednesday a press release stating Mr. Lynch "has a very
poor memory or he's lying."
Autonomy responded Thursday that Oracle "seems a little confused."
Oracle has been taking shots at H-P since it became a competitor by buying S
un Microsystems, and the hostile rhetoric has risen since Oracle hired forme
r H-P chief Mark Hurd as its president last year.
In the latest exchange, Oracle on Wednesday described an April meeting at wh
ich Mr. Lynch and the well-known investment banker Frank Quattrone met with
Mr. Hurd and the company's acquisitions chief, Doug Kehring. Oracle said Mr.
Lynch made a sales pitch for Autonomy but that Oracle thought the company,
then valued at $6 billion, was overpriced.
Enlarge Image
Close.Mr. Lynch, in an interview Wednesday, said the meeting took place but
described it as an informal introduction arranged by Mr. Quattrone. He said
Autonomy wasn't for sale at the time and that he didn't hire Mr. Quattrone's
firm, Qatalyst Partners, to pursue a deal for Autonomy until June. "We talk
ed about databases," he said of the April meeting.
Then Oracle escalated the kerfuffle in the early hours Thursday. In another
statement, the company called Mr. Lynch's account "interesting, but not true
." The company set up a new section of its website, called "PleaseBuyAutonom
y," and posted slides that it said Mr. Lynch presented to Messrs. Hurd and K
ehring, which explore Autonomy's price-to-earnings ratio and other financial
metrics.
Later Thursday, it was Mr. Quattrone's turn to give his account, saying he h
ad emailed the slides to Mr. Hurd in January on his own. "These slides were
not used in our April meeting with Mark and Doug," he said.
Mr. Lynch said Thursday that he was "flattered and amused by all of the atte
ntion." Autonomy in a statement said the April meeting was the last contact
between the two companies and that it was unaware of Mr. Quattrone's January
email. "Oracle seems a little confused about the sequence of events and ori
gins of the data it has received," said Autonomy, which specializes in softw
are that helps businesses sift through emails and other "unstructured data."
It added: "We would be delighted to help."
Mr. Ellison became an outspoken critic of H-P after its board forced Mr. Hur
d to resign last August following an ethics probe. Mr. Ellison called the de
cision the worst since Apple Inc.'s board forced out Steve Jobs more than 25
years ago. He hired Mr. Hurd a month later.
When H-P named Leo Apotheker—a former chief executive at SAP AG, an Oracle
rival—to its top job last September, Mr. Ellison said he was "speechless."
Oracle later accused Mr. Apotheker of masterminding an intellectual-property
theft ring while he was at SAP.
The German company admitted a former subsidiary illegally downloaded Oracle'
s property and accepted responsibility for the act. The companies are fighti
ng in court over payment of damages.
A spokeswoman for H-P, which fired Mr. Apotheker this month and replaced him
with Meg Whitman, had no comment on the exchange between Oracle and Autonom
y. Ms. Whitman and H-P Chairman Ray Lane have defended the Autonomy purchase
, which is expected to close as soon as Monday, and said the price was what
was needed to reach the deal.
Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that Hewlett-Packard Co.
's proposed acquisition of Autonomy Corp. had been cleared by regulators in
Australia. It was cleared in Austria. |
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