Still smarting from Java suit loss, Larry Ellison calls Google CEO Larry Page evil

Photo: dailymail.co.uk

Larry Ellison is apparently still smarting from the court battle he lost back in May of last year when he accused Google of copyright infringement over its use of Java in Android, lost and ended up paying Google’s $4M court costs.

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Oracle bought Java from Sun Microsystems, and claimed ownership of some of the code used by Google. Google argued that the small amount of replicated code was ‘fair use’ and that the rest of it was coded from scratch simply using similar approaches to Java. Oracle lost.

In an interview with CBS’s Charlie Rose, transcribed in Business Insider, Ellison accuses Page of violating Google’s company slogan, Don’t be evil. Transcript below the fold … 

LARRY ELLISON: I think most of– the only problem– guys I have trouble with are the Google guys.

CHARLIE ROSE: Really?

LARRY ELLISON: Yeah.

CHARLIE ROSE: So Larry and Sergey you have trouble with?

LARRY ELLISON: Larry specifically.  Larry– I– I think– I–

CHARLIE ROSE: Larry per se?

LARRY ELLISON: Yeah, Larry per se.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why?

LARRY ELLISON: ‘Cause– he makes the decisions over there.  He run– he runs that company.  No one else runs that company. And they decided– let me very clear.  They– when you program– when you write a program for the android phone, you write it.  You– you use the Oracle tool– Oracle Java tools for everything. And at the very end, you press a button and said, “Convert this to Android format.”  We don’t compete with Google.  We don’t do anything Google does.  We– we just think they took our stuff and– and that was– and that was wrong.  That’s a completely separate issue.

CHARLIE ROSE: But, I mean, do you think they’re evil?

LARRY ELLISON: I think what they did was– was– absolutely evil.

CHARLIE ROSE: And you blame Larry Page?

LARRY ELLISON: Abs– 100% Larry Page.

CHARLIE ROSE: So if what they did is evil, that makes Larry Page evil?

LARRY ELLISON: No, it makes what he did evil.  Which is quite different.  And I know his slogan is “Don’t be evil.”

CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about.

LARRY ELLISON: And I think he slipped up this one time.  But– the–

CHARLIE ROSE: So he’s a good guy except this one time when he–

LARRY ELLISON: This really bothers me.  I don’t– I don’t see how he thinks you can just copy someone else’s stuff.  It really– it really bothers me.

Despite Ellison’s claims that the two companies don’t compete, a substantial number of Oracle customers switched to Google Enterprise apps, with Google acquiring much of its talent – including its Head of Enterprise Sales, Amit Singh.

In the same interview, Ellison made a veiled attack on Apple CEO Tim Cook, saying that the future of an Apple without Steve Jobs was “already known” – a reference to the time when Apple nearly went bust while Jobs was absent.