Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickpp | Hacker News Reader

Wait, I thought Oracle (Java's current owner) is Apple's friend, because of the lawsuit against Google's Android.

Head spinning.

For all the competition, Apple and Google have loads more in common with each other (they both make immensely useful products for end-users) than either has in common with Oracle (who sells very expensive employment-insurance policies for people who'd die laughing three times over before touching the software they purchase with a ten foot pole).

I'm thinking no-one likes a bully in the playground, so if Oracle is suing Google for effectively writing a JVM, maybe Apple is going to stop maintaining theirs. These things tend to cut both ways.

I doubt Oracle suing Google was an effort to favor Apple. It was more to save their own Java platform in general and Java ME in particular.

Oh, please, it was more to earn some money out of the Sun acquisition.

Like they give a shit about the Java brand.

Companies aren't usually friends, but CEO's can be. Larry Ellison has repeatedly referred to Steve Jobs as his best friend, and used to serve on Apple's board.

Back when Jobs was only "interim" CEO and Apple was at least nominally looking for a permanent CEO, he and Ellison played a prank on some guy who seemed overeager to apply for the job: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9801/01/apple.oracle.reut/index.html and Jobs was the photographer at Ellison's wedding.

Corps are not people and treating them as such is setting oneself for disappointment. No friends, only interests.

Oracle's friends are Fortune 500 executives with small minds and deep pockets. That is to say, people who are willing to shell out for Oracle products and services when there are considerably better and less expensive alternatives available.

AFAIK Oracle still charges license fees for Oracle per core, while Microsoft charges per socket. The result is a HUGE price disparity... and the less expensive product is also the one that's far easier to deploy and maintain, and has vastly superior tools for developing and optimizing code.

Honestly, I don't see how Apple would be on Oracle's radar at all, since they serve such vastly different markets.

Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison are good friends. As for Apple and Oracle, corporations may have enemies, but I'm not sure that they ever have friends.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com