The fight between Oracle and Google over Android's use of Java took a turn in Google's favor, filings from the District Court for the Norther District of California showed on Wednesday. The jury in the patent phase of the case unanimously voted that Oracle did not prove Android had infringed on Oracle's Java patents.

This decision settles only part of the lawsuit, which Groklaw remarked has been the "longest civil trial" they have ever covered. However, it is a big part. Oracle was calling for an injunction on Android plus damages in its suit, and now that the jury has found no patent infringement, the threat of injunction is nullified.

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A day after competitor SAP acquired Ariba to bolster its cloud portfolio, Oracle announced a significant buy of its own, acquiring cloud-based social, marketing company Vitrue on Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although TechCrunch reports it was worth some $300 million.

Oracle's purchase of Vitrue gives the Redwood Shores, Calif. company a foothold in the social CRM segment, an initiative Gartner says companies will spend some $2.1 billion on this year alone. With the rise of social networks, companies need methods to quantify the results of their social marketing. Virtue's platform allows customers to "centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on their social marketing campaigns and activities", Oracle says.

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In late 2010, information technology company Oracle sued Google for unlawfully using Java to power the Android mobile operating system. Oracle claimed the popular operating system violated seven of its fundamental Java patents, and the two companies began a long courtroom battle which yesterday came to a crossroads over copyrights.

Jurors sitting in on the trial in the District Court of the Northern District of California rendered a partial verdict on Monday, agreeing that Oracle had successfully proven Google's infringement upon the overall structure, sequence and organization of its Java copyrights.

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Six in a series. So after five parts, one question remains: What will IBM look like by the end of 2015?  It will look like Oracle.

With earnings per share meaning everything and a headcount mandate that can’t be achieved without totally transforming the company, IBM is turning itself into something very different. Gerstner’s service business that saved the company 20 years ago will be jettisoned, probably to a combination of US and international buyers.

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