Oracle is still butthurt over the fact that it snapped up Java when it purchased Sun Microsystems and still hasn’t figured out how to make it profitable. Google on the other hand, managed to take the Java application programming interface (API) and use it for Android, which is turning the company a tidy profit. After getting its ass handed to it in court only to have a dimwitted judge reverse the decision, Oracle is pushing forward with its desperate attempt to get its hands on some of the wealth Google created. Oracle is now claiming that Google owes damages. Why? Apparently because it’s offering Android for free:
Catz also testified that Oracle’s Java licensing business was hurt by Android. Customers that used to buy licenses for Java, including Samsung, ZTE, Motorola, and others, don’t buy licenses from Oracle anymore. “They don’t take a license from us anymore, because they use Android, which is free,” she said.
Licensing contracts that used to be $40 million deals are now $1 million deals, Catz said. She gave the example of Amazon, which was formerly a customer but chose to go with Android for the Kindle Fire. When Amazon came out with its popular mid-range Kindle, the Paperwhite, the e-reader company chose to license Java only after Oracle offered a massive discount.
“In order to compete, we ended up giving a 97.5 percent discount for the Paperwhite,” she said, “because our competition was free.”
As for the mobile licensing business, since the launch of Android, it has performed “very, very poorly,” Catz said.
What’s next? Will Oracle sue the people behind MariaDB? For those who don’t know, MariaDB is a fork of MySQL, which is another product that Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun Microsystems. MariaDB, like the Android API, is a free product based on software Oracle acquired through its purchase of Sun Microsofts that could be taking market share from its expensive software!
Should manufacturers and developers of a product that’s sold directly for money be able to sue competitors who offer a free alternative? If you ask some antitrust supporters the answer is yes. But if you ask anybody with a brain the answer is no.
Consider Oracle’s situation. Android basically ate its lunch because nobody is buying its mobile Java software. Does that indicate that Google is somehow at fault because it made Android free? No. Such an assumption would imply that free products always win in the market when that isn’t the case. Sometimes a free product is so shitty that an expensive alternative still wins out. Consider Microsoft Windows. It’s still the most popular desktop operating system out there even though Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and a number of other free alternatives exist. Why? Because Windows offers features that consumers want and alternative don’t offer. Software compatibility, driver support, etc. are desirable features to many people. So desirable in fact that they’re willing to pay for them even though a free alternative exists. Without those features consumers see the free alternatives as so shitty that the savings associated with using them aren’t worth it. In spite of what the famous saying says, you actually can compete with free.
Android isn’t winning over mobile Java simply because it’s free. It’s winning because it offers features that consumers want. There is a massive software library available for Android that isn’t available for mobile Java. Google includes many desirable applications including clients for its popular Maps and Gmail services. Hardware developers want consumers to buy their phones so they tend to favor software that consumers want, which is part of the reason so many Android mobile devices exist while so few Windows ones do.
Google isn’t responsible for Oracle’s dwindling mobile Java profits, Oracle is for not making it a compelling product.