Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has nothing but praise for the US National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance programs, but he’s far less kind when it comes to Google – and in particular its CEO, Larry Page, whose behavior he describes as “evil.”
“I know his slogan is ‘don’t be evil,'” Ellison told correspondent Charlie Rose in aninterview with CBS This Morning that aired on Tuesday. “I think he slipped up this one time.”
By “this one time,” Ellison meant Google’s decision to use Oracle’s Java language and tools as the development platform for its Android smartphone OS, which has been the subject of an ongoing court battle between the two companies.
Most of the US federal court decisions in the case have fallen on Google’s side, but Oracle hasn’t given up yet, and Ellison himself remains unswervingly convinced that the Mountain View Chocolate Factory is in the wrong.
“We just think they took our stuff and that was wrong. I think what they did was absolutely evil,” Ellison said, adding that the decision to go with Java for Android was “100 per cent Larry Page.”
“I don’t see how he thinks you can just copy someone else’s stuff. It really bothers me,” the database mogul continued.
As for Oracle’s competition with other tech companies, Ellison seemed unconcerned. “The only guys I have trouble with are the Google guys,” he said.
In a segment of the interview that was broadcast earlier, Ellison heaped praise on his late friend, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, and said that although he liked current CEO Tim Cook, he expected Cupertino’s fortunes to wane in Jobs’ absence, as they have in the past.
But for once he made no mention of Microsoft, at one time Oracle’s most hated rival. Perhaps that’s because these days Redmond is also battling Google in the courts over Android, in its case on antitrust grounds – “the enemy of my enemy,” and all that.
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