Does Larry Ellison need more fiber in his diet? The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) today lays out the Oracle CEO’s latest provocation meant to diss rival Hewlett-Packard as overpaying for UK software maker Autonomy. And his point? That Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch shopped the company to Oracle back in April, something Lynch denies.
Add: Their war of words about an April meeting at Oracle that included Lynch and investment banker Frank Quattrone is pure schoolyard:
Lynch: “We talked about databases” (9/28)
Ellison: “Interesting, but not true . . . We have put Mike Lynch’s PowerPoint slide sales-pitch up on the Oracle website.” (9/29)
Quattrone: “The slides Oracle posted publicly were sent by me to [Oracle president] Mark Hurd in January . . . These slides were not used in our April meeting.” (9/29)
Noted: WSJ says Oracle posted the slides on a new section of its website set up yesterday, called “PleaseBuyAutonomy.” Recess over.
