Icahn is out to only line his own pockets.

He recently buys in to BEA knowing that if he gets a large enough position, he can try to bully it in to a sale. So he gets his quick profit in the name of "shareholder value".

But is his actions really in the shareholder's best interest?

Don't think so.

BEA isn't officially on the chopping block and the board most likely acted in the company's best interest. Icahn clearly isn't.

One has to ask if the SEC shouldn't be looking in to Icahn and any affiliation he may have we Oracle, or any of its board of directors...

On the surface, something smells, and I'm not in the state of Denmark, or a Shakespear play. .;-)

Yet another reason I hate the so-called "capitalist free-market" of the US. On one side, you have hungry conglomerates doing either "hostile-takeover then shutdown competitors" or "eat your competitors so they are you" tactics. As an example of the first one I call CompUSA vs. Computer City.

On the other side, we have greedy investors shouting "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" and selling out to said conglomos, only because its a get-rich-quicker solution than actually helping said company. Its sad enough to see a lot of start-ups that are being made on the dream of "oooh soon MS, Oracle, IBM et al will buy me up!!!" without 'investors' trying to bully established biz to sell up.

Screw Icahn. Keep it up BEA ... and if they want to get sold but at a higher price, well, let them be.

This is what public companies are all about. The majority shareholders have purchased the right to direct corporate policies and decisions. If the majority (even if it's one person) wants something to happen, that's what happens (majority shareholders actually own a company, so it's theres to do with as they please). If companies don't want that kind of "interference" they have no business placing a majority of their company up for sale.