Larrys Quest Hardly a Breeze

"I am sailing, I am sailing, home again cross the sea," rasped the Rumormonger, Rod Stewart-like. El Gato was in a nautical mood after hearing that Larry Ellisons BMW Oracle Racing team is once again on a quest to win the Americas Cup.

Alas, the wind was literally let out of all the competitors sails on the first day of the Louis Vuitton Cup segment: There was no sea breeze for sailing. The calm weather in Valencia, Spain, just didnt provide the gusts necessary to set sail. "Who needs wind? Larry should approach sailing the way he does business—eliminate the competition by acquiring all of his competitors boats," cackled the Kitty.

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El Gato wondered whether the U.S. District Court in San Francisco will take the wind out of the plaintiffs sails or be the wind beneath their wings in the securities fraud case against Oracle, when Judge Martin Jenkins decides whether Matthew Symonds, author of "Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle," should be compelled to testify in the case.

The class action suit accuses Oracle of monkeying with sales reports from 2000 to 2001 and alleges that Larry may have knowingly dumped $900 million in shares before the tech bubble burst. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, the Nursing Home Pension Fund, want the judge to compel Symonds to testify because the author claims to have accidentally destroyed old audio interviews with Ellison that they deem critical to the case.

Spence skatted off to the mall, where he caught up with a shopaholic who had a tip the Furball could only file under the "some companies have all the (bad) luck" category. A while back, the encryption mavens at Ingrian Networks had the misfortune of listing as a client CardSystems, the credit-card-processing outfit that suffered one of the biggest data breaches of all time. Late last year, Ingrian proudly announced a new client on its Web site: Massachusetts retail chain TJX Companies. Needless to say, TJXs name swiftly disappeared from Ingrians site after the retailer announced its own humongous security breach.

The crony noted that TJX had yet to install Ingrians encryption software when its scandal came to light, but one cant blame Ingrian for wanting to distance itself from touting the retailer as a client.

"Me-ouch," moaned the Mouser as he tossed back an Orange Julius. Cruising the mall, the duo stopped to check out a cell phone stand. The pal pointed out that rumors have been swirling that Dell may be teaming with hardware maker Quanta to produce a PDA/phone supposedly code-named Fly. The pal also said the 411 on the latest Google phone rumors predict a handset may be available by the end of the year.

"The bigger question is: Who isnt rumored to be launching a phone these days?" laughed the Lynx.

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