Unless companies are suing each other over patents, you can expect a level of disconnected PR speak when companies talk on the record about each other. Unless you disrespect Oracle, then it’s on.
Super-villanesque Larry Ellison of Oracle and Mike Lynch of Autonomy are having a public slap fight about a meeting that took place in April. The best part, Oracle is issuing official statements on its site calling Mike Lynch from Autonomy a liar. Not alluding that he’s a liar, they actually call him out, “Either Mr Lynch has a very poor memory or he’s lying.”
To drive home their point they were indeed pitched Autonomy, Oracle stated “We still have his PowerPoint slides.” Here are the two sets of PowerPoint slides sent to us from Oracle. (Autonomy Trading and Financial Statistics, Autonomy Overview)
Lynch responded with typical CEO talk about how they made clear the meeting wasn’t about Autonomy being for sale. Blah blah blah.
Oracle again called out Lynch via a company statement entitled, “Another Whopper from Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch“. Saying that lynch’s story about the meeting was “interesting, but not true”. Seriously, don’t screw with Oracle.
It’s refreshing to see a company ready to throw down without all the bullshit pleasantries normally associated with corporate America. [Oracle, The Telegraph]