Re: Informix vs Oracle, alleged trade secret theft

Yomama Sophat wrote:
> 1) Who's in the right?
> 2) Who will win in the end?
> 3) Who's got the better technology?

You ask very interesting questions. The answers to the latter two are, alas, functions of things that are far beyond any sense of rightness, fairness, or truth: hype, money, and marketing will distort the facts and ultimately, as is typically the case, the decision will be made behind closed doors.

As for who's in the right, I think this is perhaps the most troubling question of all, as it (the question, and the lawsuit) raise very troubling issues: exactly who owns what someone has in their head, and how do you protect your "trade secrets," when in fact your "trade secret" may be the person that invented it, rather than the tool, technique, formula, algorithm, design or whatever other result of their efforts.

Ultimately, I think the key question is: how do you get key people, possessors of the corporate technology jewels, to stay, rather than to leave; and I think the ultimate answer to that question is far too troubling for traditional corporate management types to accept.

On a more specific note, a few years back American Airlines sued Northwest Airlines for almost exactly the same sort of practice, with regard to yield management technology, and won; ultimately, they proved that Northwest had "poached" too aggressively, but mainly by dint of proof of copies of documents, data, etc. The issue of head-hunting was a significant, but peripherial part of the ultimate decision against Northwest.

Cheers,

Larry Baker
SABRE Decision Technologies Received on Fri Jan 24 1997 - 00:00:00 CST