Google, Oracle still don't reach agreement after Page, Ellison meet

Despite Google CEO Larry Page and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison meeting face-to-face on Monday to talk it over personally, no settlement was reached in the ongoing Google Android legal case, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Apparently, the two tech titans will meet once again in private settlement talks on Wednesday morning - the same day that Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is set to testify at a special US Senate hearing on the search giant's market power and business practices.

While the session wasn't open to the public, we know from court filings that Google's retinue included Page himself, Chief Legal Officer David Drummond and Google Senior VP of Mobile Andy Rubin. On the other side, Oracle's Ellison brought Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz.

It's unclear how many of these top-level executives are going to return for Wednesday's court-ordered second round of talks, but the court is likely going to prefer the two Larrys-in-chief make a repeat appearance.

Again, we don't know exactly what went down. But I'll bet that the talks went along the lines that ZDNet'sLarry Dignan laid out earlier: thanks to its acquisition of the Java intellectual property when it purchased Sun, Oracle feels entitled to a sizable cut of future device sales. Meanwhile, Google merely wants Oracle to scram.

And with Page's relative inexperience and Ellison's status as a hardened Silicon Valley veteran, the talks were probably, for lack of a better phrasing, extremely interesting, and I envy any fly on that wall.

The U.S. District Court of Northern California is really pushing for a settlement in this case, as evidenced by its insistence that the two companies' power players meet in person. A trial is tentatively scheduled for October if Oracle and Google can't reach an agreement, but no one really wants a protracted legal battle if it can be avoided.

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