It has always been a "systems" company, selling bundles of software and hardware together.
According to the complaint, Oracle sold $1.08 billion of software under the contract in question to a wide range of government agencies, including the Defense, Education and Justice Departments and the military.
Autonomy, the leading British technology firm whose former management is accused of inflating its value, sold $23m of software to a small Washington reseller in the year to December 2009.
(Egghead.com, near death when it was paying rent on walk-in stores, sells $22 million of software on-line).
Spurned venture capitalists: "It took less effort to sell $3 million of software than to negotiate $3 million in venture capital".
Programmer Justin Lavoie, whose Silent Productions firm sells bundles of software like "Friend Request Broadcast" and "Comment Broadcast," says he has more than 4,000 customers.
Christian Owens In 2008, aged 14, Owens, from Corby, began Mac Bundle Box, selling discounted bundles of software for Apple computers; he said it took £700,000 in revenue.
The two are locked in a bitter market, legal, and technology battle for the leading position in selling this kind of software.
Since its launch in July, the App Store has turned into a monster, with Apple announcing in August it was selling $1 million worth of software a day and climbing.
The Nasdaq lost 6.17percentt as investors sold off shares of software and telecommunications concerns.
