Trash talk scorecard: What did BEA do to peeve Larry Ellison?

BEA must be doing something right. The middleware company has become Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's latest obsession.

For those of you keeping score at home, Ellison mentioned BEA 10 times on last night's fiscal third quarter earnings conference call. Ellison didn't mention BEA at all in the second quarter. Red Hat got one mention from Ellison in the third quarter.

To put this BEA rant into perspective consider that Ellison mentioned SAP 13 times last night. SAP is clearly Oracle's obsession of choice, but BEA is moving up the ranks quickly. Here's our informal scorecard:

Third quarter trash talk:

• Ellison mentioned BEA 10 times, SAP 13 times and Red Hat once;
• Charles Phillips, Oracle co-president, mentioned SAP four times;
• Safra Catz, Oracle co-president, mentioned SAP once.

Second quarter trash talk:

• Ellison had five SAP mentions;
• Phillips mentioned SAP four times and BEA three times.