The big dog gets the steak

CNN and the Wall Street Journal have the story of Oracle moving into the hardware business:

Shares of Netezza Corp. and TeraData Corp., two makers of data storage appliances, fell Thursday after Oracle Corp. said it would start selling hardware. Netezza's stock fell $1.52, or 12.3 percent, to $10.85 in afternoon trading, making the Framingham, Mass., company the largest percentage decliner in the technology sector on an up day for the market. TeraData's stock fell $1.48, or 7 percent, to $19.55. It hit $19.51 earlier in the day, the lowest level for the stock since the Miamisburg, Ohio, company was spun off from NCR Corp. in October last year. Oracle shares added 52 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $20.47.
Oracle already dominates the database software field. The company's Chief Executive Larry Ellison announced Wednesday that the company will sell a "database machine" and a smaller storage product, both made by Hewlett-Packard Co. The products are aimed at undercutting companies like Netezza that sell so-called "data warehouse appliances."
However, analyst Brent Williams at Benchmark Capital said it is unlikely Netezza or Teradata would lose significant numbers of customers to Oracle because customers are already "locked in" to their products.
"Teradata, in particular, has dominated the ultra-high-end data warehousing deployments for decades with a combination of custom hardware and software," Williams wrote in a Thursday research note.

Larry doesn't play in realms he can't control; Rico says if you own Teradata or Netezza stock, dump it by the weekend...