lawyer up well as if Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison didn't have enough on his plate already late Sunday Ellison used the stage at the start of the Oracle OpenWorld conference to show off the company's new database 18c a new cloud-based database product that Ellison said we'll do whatever Amazon's web services can do but at less than half the cost of Amazon's offerings Ellison even went so far as to say that the Oracle Ale is in a state of cyber warfare with Amazon but Amazon isn't the only rival Oracle is having to face today three female former engineers have filed suit against Oracle charging the business software giant with gender discrimination on the grounds that they were paid less than male co-workers in similar positions at the company the lawsuit filed by former engineers wrong Jewett Safi Wang and Jean Marie was originally filed in San Mateo County Superior Court in June then amended in late August attorney James Finn burg of the San Francisco law firm Altschuler Berzin is representing the plaintiffs fin Berg said he is seeking for the case to be elevated to class-action status we're in the discovery phase right now fin Burks said in a telephone interview he said he believes Oracle engaged in a clear pattern of behavior of paying female employees less than male counterparts