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Oracle Says It Investigated Microsoft Allies
Schnedt McWapt writes: "Oracle Says It Investigated Microsoft Allies.
From the article: 'Oracle Corporation acknowledged today that it had hired a prominent Washington detective firm to investigate groups sympathetic to its archrival, the Microsoft Corporation, an effort that yielded documents embarrassing to Microsoft in the midst of its antitrust battle with the government.'"
Myriad adds: "This apparently ties in with an earlier [CNN] report involving IGI and the failed purchase of Association for Competitive Technology office trash -- a group with ties to Microsoft. You can find the article on CNNfn here. I hate to say it, but would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?"
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Here is the catch. Once somebody crosses the ethical boundry from healthy competition to sleazy business (which microsoft did long ago...), then it works like an arms race, in that everybody has to hire a Cloak and Dagger department to stay afloat, because anybody without one gets screwed.
I don't particualarly blame oracle in this situation. If microsoft was playing nice, within the bounds of ethical business practices, and oracle went and hired a detective, then i think that would be excessive/bad business. The trick is that they are in an arms race of sleaze, started by closed standards, and predatory marketing practices, so they did what they had to.
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Play Six Pack Man. I
One of the first things they tell you when you are learning about business ethics is don't do anything that you wouldn't be ashamed to read about in the newspaper the next day.
The business arena is not a private one. People can and do betray each other; secrets leak, enemies sneak.
Naturally, you want to keep your business secrets secret. If you are afraid of how people will act when they find out -- fair enough. But if you are afraid of what people will think of you, well that's a damn good sign you have an ethical problem.
I've been witness to numerous ethical quibbles in business where people come up with complicated rationalizations about why its OK to do something which any sensible person would know is wrong. You know what? I've yet to see a case where in the end it really was worth the energy to (A) justify it to yourself and (B) hide it from other people. And that's assuming you don't care to think of yourself as a decent, reasonable person.
Now, you can argue that Microsoft has made a pile of money while doing all kinds of unethical things. But it's the same old shit on a huger scale -- they made lots of money but they're pissing away that much more time and money, and it ain't over yet -- it's hardly even begun. I think they'd still have made almost as much money acting in a way that would preserve the respect (if not the admiration) of information technology professionals, and they would be free and clear now to enjoy their monopolies which in all liklihood they'd have won fair and square.
What is stunning, to me, is how unnecessary all of Microsoft's legal and ethical problems are. Competitiveness, even with a modicum of ruthlessness, is a virtue; but Microsoft is like a character in a play who takes what would in moderation be a virtue and turn it into a self destructive obsession. Shame exists, among other reasons, to keep you from doing really stupid things. A person who feels too much shame is to be pitied; a person who feels no shame at all is to be loathed and ultimately will have to be destoyed.
"We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
'Here may you see the tyrant.'"
-- MacDuff, MacBeth Act 5, Scene 8
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The Oracle knows all ...
Knowledge is power
Power corrupts
Corruption is evil
Therefore teachers breed evil. QED.
Oversimplification can lead to a lot of wrong conclusions.
Larry was an egomaniac long before he was a billionaire. Ditto for Bill, Steve, and all the other tech CEO's that we know by first name. Their "alpha dog" personalities is a big part of why they are where they are today.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Companies are always checking out the competition. As long as Oracle is not using government force (say through draconian patent and copyright law) or fraud, I don't really see the problem. If the PI firm is breaking the law, then there may be some culpability, but absent that, hiring a PI to check out how Microsoft is attempting to use government force is not only ethical, they would be fools not to do it. Microsoft was attempting to manipulate the government to further its own ends (be those ends morally right or wrong). It is in its competitors' interests to find out how, and to expose the attempts if that is appropriate.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
Keep in mind why Oracle wanted Microsoft investigated.
On the surface (only Oracle and the PIs know what goes on behind the scenes and press releases), it appears the firm was hired not to try and steal info on MS technology, but find evidence that certain industry groups are, in fact, Microsoft astroturf. If the roles were reversed, Microsoft would have every right to find out who's funding their enemy's supporters. As long as no information on MS technology was handed to Oracle, they're in the clear; MS is the bad guy here for trying to fake industry and public support, and they got caught.
It would be a little easier to like Microsoft if they didn't constantly pull bully tactics and blatant attempts to pull the wool over people's eyes with things like ACT.
Because a lot of us are all hellbent on beating MSFT into the ground and thus will focus in on all the bad points.
Well, they haven't exactly been the greatest of corporate citizens, and I don't think anyone can blame their trial blunders on anyone but MS itself - I mean, faking video testimony; that would fry your credibility in any court case, civil or criminal.
I was an MS user and fan for a good five years, before I learned there were alternatives, got sick of the crashes and impenetrability, and found out about MS' actions to kill competition in the desktop PC market (and more recently, their less-successful attempts to squash competition elsewhere). I know there are good points to Microsoft (making the desktop PC more accessible to the user, "standardization" and note the quotes), but by now the bad points have heavily outweighed the good ones in my mind, and Microsoft is to blame for that. They have no one but their higher-ups and decision-makers to blame for the state they're in right now.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Only partially true. I agree that there would be a lot more angry people on these boards if it was Microsoft that did the investigating, which is odd because Oracle is also a monopolistic behemoth.
The other factor is that Oracle found things. Public reaction to this sort of thing is rarely based on a strict ethical standard. If Oracle had hired IGI and found a couple of small and inconsequential things, then people found out about it, they'd be critical of Oracle and their industrial espionage tactics. However, since Oracle uncovered a lot of dirty laundry, it's a lot easier for people to say, "go Oracle! Those dirty MS scum were trying to get away with that, but you caught 'em".
Oracle makes a good database product and that is where it should end.
Right. Resistance is futile, right? If Microsoft wants to crush you they will, so why even try to defend yourself?
On the other hand, maybe Microsoft is a direct competitor to Oracle that has an Operating System monopoly to leverage against Oracle. Considering how many companies lost their shirts to this leverage - the entire C++ compiler industry (borland), the web browser industry (netscape), the email industry (remember eudora?) - I consider this less than due dilligence on their part. If I were Oracle I'd be busy planting moles in redmond and lobbying for stronger anti-trust regulation.
but that's just me.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
Thinking about this for a bit...
Is Oracle using this information to crush competitors and improve its market position? They're basically paying for their own investigative reporting. The information is being presented to everybody, and just happens to put Microsoft in a very bad light with respect to their anti-trust trial. In a way they are, but it's not very direct. Microsoft is basically hanging itself.
Are they doing anything illegal? Well, the Oracle PR person claims they gave specific instructions to the company they hired that they not do anything illegal. While a PR person is about as trustworthy as the weather in the midwest, this statement is fairly plausible, and Oracle's immediate admission also tends to make me believe they aren't prevaricating.
What would happen if Microsoft did this? Well, they'd turn up Oracle's links to IGI (the investigating firm) I'm sure. It doesn't sound though like Oracle is trying too hard to hide them. They might turn up other interesting things about Oracle's business practices, but I highly doubt that they'd turn up anything nearly as embarassing as Microsoft's hiring of 'independent' advocacy groups.
Would I care if Microsoft did this? No, not really. It would mostly generate a big shrug, and a 'business as usual for Microsoft' attitude from me. It wouldn't generate the same sense of outrage as learning about Microsoft's OEM contracts, or hearing that they plan to make their software purposely incompatible with the Palm Pilot. It's notable mostly because Oracle isn't known for business practices that are in the least shady or underhanded.
So, nope, I don't care. In fact, I largely find Oracle's actions to be highly amusing. 'The truth shall set you free.' *chuckle* It's also highly characteristic of what I know of Larry Ellison. And their immediate admission without really trying to patch it over with PR scores big points with me.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I must have missed the press release that said Informix was bought out by Oracle... or the one that said MS-SQL is being scrapped because Oracle has unfairly pushed them out of business.
Oracle is big because every 20-something with a dot-com and a fist full of VC money is running his business on Oracle. You can't swing a dead cat in a Starbucks without hitting a geek who thinks Oracle databases are the best available. They have mindshare, marketshare, and lots & lots of money.
Was this mostly because of marketing? Of course it is.
Is that the same as "crushing and swallowing" the competition "by any means neccesary"? Certainly not.
Microsoft has not cornered the market on shady business practice, but they did establish the standards for it.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Excuse me, but I thought that people buying Microsoft trash was their major source of revenue...
Probably because nobody realy fears Oracle the way Apple fans (to use your example) fear Microsoft.
Oracle sells databases. I've never seen anybody become emotionally attatched to a database platform the way one would a great car or a computer. Nobody says "omygod, if Oracle wins, MySQL might be gone forever! They must be stopped!"
Microsoft, on the other hand, has driven a lot of interesting personal computing companies into the ground. My impression of Larry Ellison is that he would do the same if he were to his advantage, but its not (at the moment).
Bottom line is when a monkey misbehaves, it's a problem, but when The 800 Pound Gorilla misbehaves, it's a much bigger problem.
Let us not forget that it was not that long ago when Big Blue was the hated Evil Empire. IBM was on the verge of facing anti-trust regulation themselved, when Gates and Balmer managed to usurp the throne from them. Five or ten years from now it will be some other company (maybe Oracle) that terrorizes the entire industry and Must Be Stopped.
None of this changes the fact that Microsoft richly deserves every last wad of spit that has been lobbed towards Redmond lately.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The BBC is also running an article on this, here
Oracle has a damn fine reputation as being the best (or among the best) provider of business solutions (read: big ass data mulinexing) because they make damn fine software. Thier marketshare is based predominantly on merit, and not some massive marketing campaign. In fact, the first time I've recall ever seeing oracle ads on TV was around a year ago.
So given that the company overall has a good attitude and produces great products, then yeah... I'm fully prepared to cut them some slack in the corporate shenangians area. I think doing a dirt dig is a scummy move, but in a way it seems almost poetic justice that they're doing em on the lackeys of Bill, the grand poobah of scummy moves.
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rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
Seriously, if this comes as a suprise to anybody then they obviously don't know much about the business world at all. Corporate espionage and intelligence gathering has been one of the fastest growing market sectors, along with "head-hunting", for the last decade or so, and the trend looks set to continue.
Any corporation that wants to get ahead of its rivals in of course extremely interested in what is going on with their rivals. And there are plenty of agencies which specialise in finding out facts that aren't published in the annual company review.
As a professional consultant I've worked with very large Fortune 500 corporations, and after working on introducing an ERP solution for one of them, I was approached thorugh my agency by a "client". At lunch I was asked several innocent sounding questions about the company who I'd just been working with, and the client was never heard from again.
But, if it helps ensure more vigorous competition in the business world then I don't see how anyone can really argue that this is a bad thing - after all it's not like they're after personal secrets is it? Most corporations have too much to hide anyway.
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Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Well, the illegal part was the fraud perperated when someone tried to bribe the janitors for the trash to sift through.
The courts have promulgated a rule about trash, fo the purposes of criminal investigations. The rule seems appropriate in this situation as well:
- If you discrad something, it's fair game for searches. (A "reasonable and prudent person" would have no "expectation" that the information on it would be safe from hostile viewers.)
- If you shred it first, it's not. (I.e. the cops don't get to sort the strips, stick them back together, and use them as evidence.)
If the courts recognize that you can expect the information on documents thrown into the trash, without shredding, to come back to haunt you in criminal cases, why is there anything "illegal" about a private citizen, or a service agency hired by one of the victims, doing the trash picking?
It's only a problem if they hire the janitors to give them trash they were supposed to shread.
As for fraud, WHAT fraud? Who was defrauded? Who defrauded whom? Again, the only way a fraud would be perpetrated is if the janitor handed over trash that he was hired to shread, or if he diverted it from a recycling operation he was specifically directed to use.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?
-If it was Microsoft who did the hiring we'd all be crying bloody murder.
-If Microsoft had nothing to do with it it woudn't show up on slashdot. Can you picture the headline: Nortel hires IGI against Acatel? Neither could I, mostly because we wouldn't care. Why? Because a lot of us are all hellbent on beating MSFT into the ground and thus will focus in on all the bad points.