Thursday, July 01, 2004

Finally Ellison trumps Gates

One of the most interesting things about the antitrust case against Microsoft a few years ago was watching the videotaped deposition of Bill Gates. Gates got pushed around the stand and looked both childish and incompetent at times. Unlike Gates, it appears that Larry Ellison can hold his own on the stand. While I haven't seen a videotape of his testimony, the summary provided makes it appear that Larry did a good job articulating Oracle's reasons for trying to buy PeopleSoft.

While I think Oracle's claim that they won't have any pricing power after acquiring PeopleSoft is a joke, I think Larry did a good job articulating the potential threats that would cause pricing pressure. This is also clearly a situation where Microsoft sitting on $60 Billion in cash can really help Oracle, because it makes the boys up in Redmond a legitimate threat to enter the market and cut prices.

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