Oracle and its Flamboyant CEO Larry Ellision

Oracle (ORCL) has seen huge gains

Oracle has seen huge gains since its IPO one day before Microsoft (MSFT) and has made its investors rich, but it still trails Microsoft as Microsoft is the winner in the applications market while Oracle sells software to businesses.

Yahoo says of Oracle:

"Oracle Corporation develops, manufactures, markets and distributes computer software that helps corporations manage and grow their businesses. The Company's software products can be categorized into two broad areas: Systems software and Internet business applications software. Systems software is a complete Internet platform to develop and deploy applications on the Internet and corporate Intranets, and includes database management software and development tools that allow users to create, retrieve and modify the various types of data stored in a computer system. Internet business applications software allows users to access information or use the applications through a simple Internet browser on any client computer, and automates the performance of specific business data processing functions for financial management, procurement, project management, human resources management, supply chain management, and customer relationship management."

Click for a detailed chart of ORCL.

Click for a detailed chart of MSFT.

The first chart shows Oracle really stumbled in 1990 and then greatly outperformed Microsoft the past decade making anyone that invested before 1999 very happy.

Forbes Cover Article

The August 20, 2001 Issue of Forbes has a picture of Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, and the words "The Trouble with Larry". The article pretty much says how difficult Ellison is to work for and how Ellison attacks customers and competitors alike.

"Oracle goes out and proclaims that you are an idiot. When you alienate everybody in the food chain, you become someone no one wants to play with."

The article discusses how Ellison runs his company and how poorly he treats the people that work for him saying:

"People stay at Oracle because they are well paid and fear recrimination. But Larry is a control freak. He has a knack for taking the best and the brightest - and then he tries to destroy them."

This is a must read if you are considering buying Oracle stock. I've never bought Oracle as I don't like Ellison's management "style" or his vision for a network PC that was proven wrong but the stock has made a TON of money for people that invested in it.

In Conclusion

Oracle and MSFT went public within a day of each other and made both Gates and Ellison billionaires but MSFT is leading in total return. Many wonder if Oracle can continue to grow with such an abrasive man at the helm. Bill Gates of Microsoft is no choirboy as the US Department of justice has spent a fortune trying to break up Microsoft so perhaps it takes a certain panache to run a successful software company?

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic