Oakland

SAP Plans to Fight $1.3 Billion Judgment in Oracle Case

Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on February 3, 2011 at 3:03 pm PT

SAP believes the jury was too generous in its award to Oracle and that the damages are not proportionate to its subsidiary’s offense of intellectual-property theft.

For Ask.com, Foray Into Social Search Points to Mobile

Liz Gannes in Social on December 28, 2010 at 12:56 pm PT

As Ask re-emphasizes questions and answers, President Doug Leeds is particularly high on the company’s efforts in mobile as an ideal environment for asking questions and getting timely replies from other users.

San Francisco Gets a Few More Bars (Of Signal Strength)

Ina Fried in Mobile on December 28, 2010 at 9:45 am PT

Sprint announces 4G service for San Francisco and San Jose, while AT&T is adding Wi-Fi “hot zones” for some public spaces in San Francisco and New York, two areas where its cellphone service is most often criticized.

U.S. Tech Job Growth Was Strongest in…Oklahoma City?

Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on December 9, 2010 at 7:00 am PT

The TechAmerica Foundation’s annual Cybercities report covering the state of America’s local technology job markets for 2009 (the most recent data available) paints–as you might expect–a depressing picture in all but a few of the markets surveyed.

Voices

Music Video For Database Start-Up? That's How CouchOne Rolls

Deborah Gage, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on November 15, 2010 at 12:08 am PT

How does a small Bay Area start-up whose business revolves around arcane coding compete for developers with the likes of Facebook and Google? By making a rap video, of course.

Ask Adds to Consensus: Social Is the Way to Compete With Google

Liz Gannes in Social on November 9, 2010 at 1:00 pm PT

IAC’s Ask.com is giving up the ghost on algorithmic search and Web crawling. Rather than continuing to wilt on search or competing directly with Google, IAC said today it is changing strategy to Q&A search. That will strike 130 engineering jobs in New Jersey and China, according to Bloomberg.

Oracle Co-President on SAP’s Damages Offer: “It’s Crazy”

John Paczkowski in News on November 9, 2010 at 8:02 am PT

Whatever points SAP managed to score in its high-stakes legal battle with Oracle Monday–by introducing an email from Oracle President Safra Catz suggesting the company had not lost any large customers to its German competitor after it bought TomorrowNow–dropped off the board when Catz finally took the stand herself.

Oracle Enlists Process Servers, Not PIs, to Find HP CEO

John Paczkowski in News on November 9, 2010 at 3:06 am PT

Oracle is still on the hunt for former SAP chief and current HP CEO Léo Apotheker, but it hasn’t enlisted private investigators to track him down. Sources in a position to know tell me that the PIs rumored to be searching for Apotheker are actually PSs–process servers, agents charged with delivering subpoenas to their intended recipient.

Oracle-SAP Trial: Ellison Swaps Katana for Poison Darts

John Paczkowski in News on November 8, 2010 at 1:08 pm PT

If Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s testimony today in the SAP trial lacked his usual flair for enthusiastic bloodletting, it was only because he put aside his standard samurai tactics in favor of a more subtle ninja approach.

Ellison to HP CEO: “Warrior, Come Out to Plaaeeay!

John Paczkowski in News on October 27, 2010 at 7:01 am PT

Oracle’s long-running legal battle with SAP and its now-shuttered TomorrowNow subsidiary goes to trial in an Oakland, Calif., courtroom next week. And as uncomfortable an event as it will be for SAP, which has already publicly acknowledged liability in the case, it promises to be even more so for former SAP chief Léo Apotheker, who was recently tapped to replace Mark Hurd as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO.