Could a win for Oracle put cloud in jeopardy?

Experts are mulling over a potential threat to cloud if Oracle wins a court case.

Apparently Google has been taken to court in San Francisco by the software giant Oracle, I believe, over infringements to the latter’s copyright.  Google has defended its position robustly, but a number of analysts are of the opinion that if the court ruling goes against Google it could affect cloud.

Oracle alleged Google copied its APIs to be used in its Android operating system.  Google, for its part, denied this, but I believe this denial is not cut and dried.

The problem is Google is not the only company that potentially can be affected by the court ruling.  Major businesses such as Amazon, which also uses APIs, will inevitably fall into the quagmire.

Speaking with wired.com, George Reese, Chief Technology Officer with enStratus Networks, a company that sells cloud management services said: “If APIs can be copy-protected, that would be incredibly destructive to the internet as a whole for so many different reasons.”

He continued: “But with respect to cloud, in particular, it would put any company that has implemented the Amazon APIs at risk unless they have some kind of agreement with Amazon on those APIs.”

Now, while this ruling could be potentially damaging to the future of cloud computing, the ruling will only affect businesses in the USA.  Unless Oracle decides to take court action in Europe and elsewhere then there shouldn’t be a problem this side of the Atlantic.

Let’s hope so.