14 DAY TRIAL // Lawsuits in the IT industry are about as common as they are in any other field, and is seems that a new one has just sprouted between Oracle and Micron over alleged sales of overpriced memory to Sun Microsystems.
It seems that releasing multi-core processors and planning on buying major chip companies is not all that oracle is up to lately.
In fact, it seems that the company has just gotten itself into a new legal entanglement, not too soon after HP filed a complaint against it.
This time, however, it is not Oracle that is getting sued, instead being the one doing the suing, the target of its ire being Micron.
According to the complain that the former reportedly filed, Micron has been selling memory to Sun Microsystems at prices higher than they should be.
According to the filing, Micron supposedly sold such overpriced memory for several years, until 2002 to be exact.
During the existence of that price-fixing carter, Oracle says that Sun spent a total of about $2 billion on DRAM.
According to Oracle's complaint, those involved took measures to ensure that prices were raised or kept from declining, as well as to allocate customers, among other things meant to allow them to charge more than they would have otherwise been allowed.
The point of this whole development is that Oracle wants to recover damages from this whole deal, triple the amount lost by Sun during that period to be exact.
The justification behind this large sum is that Micron's actions were intended, not just some accident or a consequence of circumstances beyond its control.
Of course, there is no way of knowing how this lawsuit will turn out, or how long it will take for it to be settled.
Still, should it be concluded with a ruling made in Oracle's favor, the company may see its coffers filled with a substantial amount of money.