Word: ellison
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...alternative, Ellison has been pushing hard--not that he could do it any other way--for a new generation of inexpensive, easy-to-use network computers, the so-called NCs. The idea is simple enough: build an inexpensive box (under $500) that combines the best of a PC (some processing smarts, a screen, a modem) with the best of the Net (tons of information, most of it free). Behind the scenes, database software (Oracle's, of course) will make all this goodness transparently simple to navigate. On the front end, in Ellison's vision, might be Apple's famously friendly...
...would be sweet revenge not only for Apple but also for Ellison, who feels about Microsoft--and most particularly about its CEO Bill Gates--the way Patton felt about Rommel. Gates' stock holdings, worth around $32 billion, dwarf Ellison's estimated $7 billion. Ellison, however, insists the fight isn't personal. "I'm more interested in beating Microsoft than I am in beating Bill Gates," he says. "I obsess on the personal computer and the industry, and I would love to see the age of proprietary computers...
...idea. Though he tucks his ambition behind wire-framed glasses and a mop haircut, he is intent on moving in on Oracle's database business. After all, it's hard to imagine a task more important to the information future than data management. Microsoft has hired away some of Ellison's brightest engineers, though the impact on Oracle's business has been negligible...
Still, the threat has sharpened Ellison and hardened Oracle's martial culture even further. In the past six months the firm has stood down a Kamikaze charge from its main challenger in the database business, Informix. The Menlo Park, Calif., company blindsided Oracle with a series of hip-sounding, well-marketed database programs it claimed were faster and better at scrounging through terrabytes of data--the grunt work where databases make their fortunes. Oracle stock took a quick dip, but Ellison's slash-and-burn sales force and espresso-fueled programmers quickly unplugged the challenge. "Informix did tons of things...
...unseat Microsoft alone. That will be a new role for a man who cherishes his lone-warrior reputation as much as his collection of Samurai helmets. Yet the scope of his ambition for network computing--as well as some mellowing that has come with age--appears to have left Ellison ready to cooperate. Already Oracle has begun to form an anti-Microsoft axis with Silicon Valley neighbors Sun Microsystems and Netscape, which Ellison says may have the perfect NC interface with its browser. Inside the firm, coo Lane now runs day-to-day operations, leaving Ellison free to think...