Oracle Taps Adrian Jones to Head Asian Operations (Read the Memo)

Software giant Oracle named Adrian Jones to head its operations in Asia. The move was announced in an internal email from Oracle president Mark Hurd, obtained by AllThingsD.

If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Jones (pictured) is a former Hewlett-Packard exec who was sued by that company in 2011. HP had alleged that Jones stole trade secrets and shared them with Oracle. The suit dates back to one of the more rancorous periods in the relationship between those companies, and the aftermath of the days when Hurd, who was for five years the CEO of HP, joined Oracle following his surprise resignation in 2010. (That situation, you'll recall, spurred its own legal merry-go-round.)

In a lawsuit filed in the California Superior Court in Santa Clara County, HP had accused Jones of copying sensitive files concerning its strategic and financial plans, plus other information, to a USB drive, and not returning them when he resigned from the company. Among other things, lawyers for HP had sought to examine every electronic device Jones owned, including phones and iPads belonging to his girlfriend.

It later turned out that the copying of the files in question didn't take place at the time that HP originally said it did, but during a period when the computer Jones used was in the hands of HP's corporate security office. Talk about awkward.

Since then, the case has been forgotten. HP was eventually forced to withdraw the case against Jones entirely, according to people familiar with how it all turned out. Neither HP nor Oracle would confirm that, however. Entries in the case-record file on the court's website make vague mentions of a dismissal that occurred on July 30, 2012.

The case against Jones was one of many HP filed during a period when Michael Holston was its general counsel. Remembered as a key aide to Hurd during the years he was running HP, Holston remained HP's general counsel during the 11-month tenure of former CEO L o Apotheker, but was among the first members of HP's executive council to leave the company after Meg Whitman became CEO.

Anyway, enough with the legal footnotes. Here's the memo announcing Jones' promotion:

From: Mark Hurd
Date: July 24, 2013, 2:00:02 AM PDT
To: Oracle Asia Pacific Sales

The business across Asia Pacific represents a significant opportunity for Oracle. We continue to invest in this region and it is poised for growth.

I am pleased to announce Adrian Jones to the position of General Manager and Senior Vice President, Oracle Asia Pacific. Adrian will lead the region for hardware and software, and be responsible for accelerating market share, revenue, and margin growth.

Adrian has strengthened our Systems business and has held senior leadership positions across the IT industry for more than 20 years. Before joining Oracle, he held the position of Senior Vice President of Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking for HP Asia Pacific and Japan. He has in-depth knowledge of these markets.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Steve Au Yeung for his contributions to Oracle. Steve is leaving Oracle, and we thank him for his five years of leadership and wish him the best in the future.

Mark

Samsung's Ill-Conceived Apple VoiceOver Suit Stayed in Germany

Samsung has suffered another setback in its smartphone patent brawl with Apple, this one on the German front, and over a particularly contentious feature: Mobile device accessibility.

A Mannheim Regional Court on Friday ordered a stay of a Samsung suit against Apple that alleges the iPhone maker’s VoiceOver screen-access technology violated its patent on display into speech data.

The mechanics of this particular spat and the court’s ruling on it are a bit too byzantine to dive into here, but it’s worth a look in broad strokes simply as an example of just how low players are willing to stoop in IP battles like the one between Apple and Samsung. So, in short: Samsung holds a patent on a feature that allows devices to read text aloud to their users with the press of a button. The company asserted that patent against Apple’s accessibility features, specifically VoiceOver which is specifically designed for anyone with impaired vision. Caught in the middle: The blind, low-vision users, folks with dyslexia and anyone else who might benefit from having what appears on their computer screen described to them out loud.

Yes, this move by Samsung against Apple was a tactical one in a nasty battle in which billions of dollars are at stake. Yes, it’s just business. But it’s ill-conceived. Even leaving aside the ethics of asserting a patent against a feature designed to help the blind, this is unwise. It’s the PR equivalent of punching yourself in the face. Samsung has now identified itself as a company willing to accept the loss of accessibility for the vision-impaired as collateral damage in its battle with Apple. It has made a big public move to make it more difficult for the blind to use computers. That’s just foolish — more so, now that the judge presiding over the case has stayed the suit. Again, this is just business and battle, but there’s a PR war being fought here, as well. And Samsung is not doing itself any favors with poorly thought-out assaults like this one.

Reached for comment, Samsung offered a boilerplate statement on the larger IP battle. “For decades, we have heavily invested in pioneering the development of technological innovations in the mobile industry, which have been constantly reflected in our products,” a company spokesman told AllThingsD. “We continue to believe that Apple has infringed our patented mobile technologies, and we will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights.”