(FORTUNE Magazine) – What Broadway is to musical theater, Highway 101 is to Silicon Valley--a crowded thoroughfare where billboards flack upcoming spectacles and the latest trendy fashions for the stalled, commuting masses. Usual 101 fare includes computer trade shows and new software programming tools. But when database upstart Informix leased a billboard right outside Oracle's corporate headquarters, things got nasty. Touting the company's "datablade" technology, one Informix spot suggested that Oracle's "business as warfare" CEO Larry Ellison was a fading samurai. (Any techie worth her options has heard about Ellison's $40 million residence, which is modeled on a Kyoto palace.) Another ad portrayed Oracle's office buildings behind a yellow sign reading warning: dinosaur crossing. In response, Ellison ordered a billboard of his own--a blunt reference to Informix's lawsuit against 13 engineers who jumped ship to work for Oracle. Do the billboards sell software? Not likely. But they sure make for some good gossip.

--Michael H. Martin