Word: ellison
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Seven billion, actually. And the mercurial software baron--who owes his success to a database-management program most Americans have never heard of--has taken full advantage of the fortune. For starters, Ellison could be a poster boy for Billionaire Chic. He drives expensive cars, loves beautiful women and jets off to exotic locations to sail his yacht. In Silicon Valley, where every day is casual Friday, the chairman of Oracle, based in San Mateo, Calif., dresses like the Prince of Wales. He shows up at industry functions in double-breasted suits, French cuffs and knuckle-size cuff links...
...Ellison's social life is no less impressive. The 6-ft.-tall, thrice-divorced bachelor hobnobs with the President (Bill Clinton is unlikely to turn down his calls since Ellison was one of his top individual donors in last year's election) and is friends with Jack Kemp, who once sat on his board of directors. Jeff Berg, the Hollywood power agent who represents clients like Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson, is a buddy. Michael Milken, the reclusive financier, is an intimate adviser. Ellison, friends will remind you, is the richest man in California...
...corporate manifestation of that warrior spirit is Oracle, the software-and-consulting giant Ellison has built over the past 20 years. Oracle enjoys a virtual hammerlock in the immensely profitable business of organizing and storing information in electronic databases. In the past fiscal year the firm squeezed more than $600 million in profits from revenues of $4.2 billion by helping firms like Pacific Bell and American Airlines track billing records and airline reservations. The company's market value is $28 billion--more than that of Time Warner or H.J. Heinz--and it has enjoyed better than a 30% annual growth...
...begun to look toward posterity. For the better part of 18 months he flirted with the idea of buying troubled Apple Computer, a deal that fizzled last week when Ellison said he was backing off, at least for now. Instead, Valley insiders say Oracle, with close to $1 billion in cash on hand, is considering a rich joint venture with Korean conglomerate LG Electronics. Both are ambitious deals, carefully calibrated to morph Oracle from a corporate-software provider into a consumer-electronics powerhouse. Says Evan Bauer, a vice president at GIGA Information Group, a Connecticut consulting firm: "Larry...
...Ellison's dealmaking is aimed at forcing a revolution onto the PC industry. Today's software, he argues, is too complicated and loaded with gizmos no one ever uses. Worse, at several thousand dollars a pop, personal computers are anything but personal. Instead, he says, "PCs should be more like pencils," by which he means cheap, user-friendly and above all ubiquitous...