Andre Yoskowitz
17 Apr 2012 23:12
Oracle considered building its own smartphone in 2009 and would have purchased either Palm or RIM to do so.
The shocking news came out today during testimony in the Google-Oracle patent infringement case.
CEO Larry Ellison admitted the company looked into buying Palm in 2009 but saw that webOS was not competitive with iOS and Android. Additionally, the company looked into buying RIM, but the BlackBerry maker was significantly more expensive then than it is now.
Finally, the company considered making a Java smartphone, but wisely decided against it.
The billion dollar lawsuit brought by Oracle revolves around patents allegedly violated by Google in the Android platform. Android is partially based on Java, which Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun MicroSystems in 2009. Google openly admitted to copying some lines of code from Java but also believes Oracle is only entitled to minuscule royalties.