With less than a week to go until a court showdown between Oracle and SAP in Oakland, California, Larry Ellison has turned up the rhetorical heat.
As we said a couple of days ago, it will be hard to stop the Oracle CEO having his say, whatever efforts SAP makes to prevent this case turning into a media circus.
Even by Mr Ellison’s standards, though, the statement from Oracle late on Tuesday carried a particularly venomous sting. Aimed at Leo Apotheker – the former SAP executive now at the helm of Hewlett-Packard – the message was blunt: turn up and appear as a witness at the trial, or risk being painted as a coward.
This looks like the sort of clever gambit you would expect from Mr Ellison.
With a war of words in full swing between Oracle and HP, there’s nothing Oracle would like better than to put Mr Apotheker on a witness stand and try to show that he was somehow implicated in the theft of Oracle intellectual property to which SAP has already admitted guilt (the trial is just to assess damages.)
As we understand it, though, the HP boss could probably escape the appearance without too much trouble. For a start, Oracle would have to be able to serve a subpoena on him within the state of California during the course of the trial for him to appear. But even if it followed this procedure, as a foreign national, and without a permanent residence yet in California, Mr Apotheker would be under no legal obligation to show up.
True, with HP a significant presence in the area, he may not want to risk alienating a local court so early in his tenure by snubbing his nose at a request to appear as a witness. But ultimately, it will be hard for Oracle to compel his appearance.
Hence Mr Ellison’s latest public jibes. He promises to produce evidence of Mr Apotheker’s involvement – unless HP decides “to keep their new CEO far, far away from HP Headquarters until that trial is over.” He adds:
I don’t think Ray Lane wants to risk Leo Apotheker testifying under oath as to why he allowed the theft of Oracle‘s property to continue for 8 months after he was made sole CEO of SAP. I hope I’m wrong, but my guess is that new HP’s Chairman, Mr. Lane, will keep HP’s new CEO, Mr. Apotheker, far, far away from the Courthouse until this trial is over.
It’s starting to feel like the climax to one of those old Westerns, the part where the gunslinger dares the hero to turn up at noon for a final showdown or be branded a coward. Will he come? Watch this space.
