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Ellison and Gates dominate different ends of the software industry. Microsoft's core business is operating systems like Windows, and desktop applications. Oracle focuses on powerful database software that manages large amounts of information for corporate and government clients. Oracle software is perfectly positioned for the information age: it allows large organizations to keep track of personnel, clients and inventory. Oracle has also bet heavily on the Internet, arguably putting the company in a better position than Microsoft for an era in which more computing will be done on the Internet and less on Windows-style operating systems. Wall Street clearly likes what Ellison is selling: while Microsoft stock has nosedived, Oracle stock has increased sixfold in the past year.
That wasn't enough for Ellison. Oracle retained Washington-based Investigative Group International to probe the pro-Microsoft spinners in the antitrust battle. I.G.I. hit pay dirt. Oracle says that in the trash of the Independent Institute--which took out pro-Microsoft ads signed by leading academics--investigators found evidence that Microsoft had given the group more than $200,000. (The Independent Institute insists its positions have been unaffected by any support from Microsoft.)
But when I.G.I. went after another group, the Association for Competitive Technology, it got caught. I.G.I. investigators rented space in ACT's Washington building under a false name and had an intermediary offer the building's cleaning crew $1,200 for ACT's garbage. The janitors refused the offer and reported the attempted bribe.
Ellison insists that Oracle told I.G.I. not to break any laws. And he says he did not know in advance that investigators would pick through garbage. Apologize? Forget it. "What exactly did we do?" he asked at his news conference. "What is our corporate espionage? Our corporate espionage is to find out that Microsoft has hired all these companies, these front organizations, and while they pretend to be independent, publishing all sorts of things that are anti-Oracle and pro-Microsoft."
In tech circles, opinion on Dumpstergate is mixed. Microsoft's critics were forgiving. "While what Ellison did was distasteful, the facts that were exposed were despicable," says J. Michael Washe, founder of the website Breakupmicrosoft.org But many neutral parties were worried that the tech industry was stooping to new lows in skulduggery. "It's not the kind of use of resources anyone can be proud of," says Ruben Barrales, president of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit economic-development organization.
It may nevertheless be the kind they should get used to. The Microsoft antitrust trial--where Gates was pilloried with his own e-mail--taught America not to archive e-mail. Dumpstergate's lesson is that if you're going to record data on anything as retro as paper and use anything as low tech as a Dumpster, you'd better remember to use a shredder.
--With reporting by Chris Taylor/San Francisco