Larry Ellison on
Microsoft's Windows Monopoly
Oracle's Chairman wonders: why do Oracle's acquisition attempts face
so much more hostility than Microsoft's? (Part One of six.)
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=6186_0_4_0_C
Larry Ellison [Oracle]
| POSTED: 09.29.04 @07:28
 At
the Wall Street Journal's D Conference this summer,
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison gave Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher
his blunt opinions of both PeopleSoft and Microsoft.
Question: What would your world look like if SAP and
Microsoft merged?
Ellison: If the European regulators
allowed us to do it, I'd merge. [laughter]. I suppose
the next thing is for Microsoft to just buy all of its
customers—it would make it so much easier for them. Then all
the purchases would be inter-company transfers of money.
I mean, it's inconceivable to me that the number one
software company in the world could buy the number three
software company in the world, and the regulators wouldn't
notice this...
Question: Don't you think about antitrust issues
early in the merger process?
Ellison: Well, people talk about the Justice
Department like there is some continuity there. The
administration has changed. At one point the Justice
Department thought that Microsoft was breaking the law, and
in fact the judge found that they were breaking the law over
and over again. The penalty was not one but several very
nasty editorials in the New York Times. [laughter] I
would look at that kind of severe penalty—which is just
dreadful during Thanksgiving dinner—and say, "Well, I've got
$250 billion in cash but I have this terrible article
hanging over my head." And I'm sure the next time Bill plans
a monopoly he figures that maybe the Washington Post
will be next. [laughter]
You know, there's been so much controversy about Bush's
preemptive war in Iraq...I can't really discuss our policy
versus Microsoft. We would like to strike—that would be
nice.
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Question:
Scott McNealy...
Ellison: I don't think any of us have stopped
competing with Microsoft. Scott was paid—what?—$2
billion for a press release. [laughter] Our press
releases are a billion a piece; we're the low-cost
provider. So, we'll let them write it.
Question: You've had some other events on the
company's calendar recently, one of which is an
antitrust case against the Department of Justice.
Ellison: The lawyers just send me out of town,
anyway.
Question: Is that right?
Ellison: They feel that since they're being paid
to argue the case they should argue the case rather than
me. Not an unreasonable position for them to take.
Question: So, how are things going? How would you
argue the case?
Ellison: It's not safe for me to go back north if
I answer that question. Obviously we wouldn't have gone
to court unless we thought we had a good case. We think
we have a
good case. There are a lot of people in the industry
who also think we have a good case. It really is up to
our attorneys and the government's attorneys and the
judge especially, to come down with a decision. That's
how our country works.
Question: Mega competition versus narrow
competition. Where do you think that is happening in the
tech industry?
Ellison: Let me just make one general comment.
People talk a lot about the Microsoft Windows monopoly.
I talk a lot about the
Microsoft Windows monopoly. One of the key
sustaining aspects of the Microsoft Windows monopoly is
Microsoft's monopoly in applications. Making
Office...that sustains the Windows monopoly. It's
extremely important if you want a monopoly in operating
systems that you also have a monopoly in applications
that run on that operating system. The fact is, it would
be fairly easy for you to move to Linux if you
could take Word and Excel with you. To a large degree,
the applications monopoly sustains the operating system
monopoly.
So if Microsoft wanted to further strengthen their
Windows monopoly they would try to get more and more
applications, either by acquisition [or their own
development] and they'd try to keep applications out of
our hands. The best way for Microsoft to sustain their
Windows monopoly is to get more applications that run
only on Windows.
We're not going to do that. A company that Microsoft
bought might find that its applications run only on
Windows. Any company we bought...our
applications will run on Linux and give you a choice.
So I think one of the reasons Microsoft isn't excited
about us prevailing with
PeopleSoft is that we'll make sure that our
applications run on Linux and other systems, and that
you're not forced to go to Windows.
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