Oracle’s Ascent in the AI Arena: From Database Giant to Compute Powerhouse
For decades, Oracle was synonymous with enterprise databases. Larry Ellison’s company built its fortune on powering corporate back offices, government systems, and financial institutions. By the late 2010s, however, Oracle was widely dismissed as a “legacy” player—reliable, but not at the cutting edge. Fast forward to September 2025, and the narrative has flipped. Oracle has become a central figure in the global race for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, locking in hundreds of billions in cloud deals, building data centers at gigawatt scale, and briefly turning Ellison into the richest man on Earth.
This transformation is not about Oracle inventing the next ChatGPT. It is about something more foundational: selling the raw power—compute, storage, and energy—that makes AI possible. In doing so, Oracle has recast itself as one of the indispensable utilities of the AI age.
Step 1: From Software to Compute Provider
Oracle’s pivot began in earnest in 2023–24 with its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) platform. Instead of competing directly with Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services on breadth, Oracle carved out a niche in high-performance, AI-optimized cloud.
Two key shifts defined this transition:
Embedding AI into Oracle’s core products. The company introduced features like Oracle AI Vector Search and Select AI, which let enterprises run large language models (LLMs) securely against their proprietary data.
Becoming a compute backbone. Recognizing that training and running LLMs requires enormous horsepower, Oracle doubled down on GPUs, networking, and energy-hungry data centers. Rather than making its own models, Oracle positioned itself as the infrastructure on which others—OpenAI, xAI, Meta, and beyond—would build theirs.
Financially, these contracts operate less like software sales and more like infrastructure investments. Oracle spends billions acquiring NVIDIA GPUs and constructing data centers. In return, it signs long-term, “take-or-pay” contracts with AI firms, guaranteeing recurring revenue streams. It is, in effect, an investment with immediate yield—cash flow now, and appreciation as AI demand scales.
Step 2: The Partnerships That Changed Everything
The crown jewel of Oracle’s AI strategy is its partnership with OpenAI.
June 2024: Oracle joined forces with Microsoft and OpenAI to extend Azure AI capacity onto OCI.
July 2025: Oracle committed 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of data center capacity to OpenAI—equivalent to several nuclear power plants’ worth of energy.
September 2025: Oracle and OpenAI inked a record-shattering $300 billion, five-year deal, the largest cloud contract in history.
The deal is not limited to one site—it involves building massive “Stargate” data centers across Texas, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Ohio, and other states. In parallel, Oracle and SoftBank are co-financing five additional facilities, part of a $500 billion commitment to create 10 GW of capacity.
And OpenAI is just the start. Reports suggest Oracle is negotiating a $20 billion deal with Meta, extending partnerships with NVIDIA, AMD, and even rivals like Google Cloud. As of late September 2025, Oracle’s Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO)—a measure of future contracted revenue—had swelled to $455 billion, much of it tied directly to AI.
These partnerships have created what critics on X (formerly Twitter) call an “ouroboros”: OpenAI raises capital, spends billions on Oracle compute; Oracle buys billions in NVIDIA GPUs; NVIDIA invests in OpenAI. The loop feeds itself, but it also underscores just how central Oracle has become in the AI supply chain.
Step 3: From Sales to Stock Surges
The mechanics of Oracle’s financial transformation are deceptively simple. When Oracle announces a mega-deal, investors reprice the company as an AI infrastructure leader.
September 10–11, 2025: News of the $300 billion OpenAI contract sent Oracle stock soaring by 36–43% in two days—its biggest rally since 1992. The company’s market capitalization surged past $900 billion.
Backlog as validation: With $455 billion in RPO, investors see years of locked-in demand. Oracle is not just selling servers—it has effectively pre-sold years of AI’s future.
This is where the “investment as sales” framing comes in. Oracle builds expensive data centers, but the contracts guarantee usage. The upfront commitments provide immediate cash inflows, and the stock market multiplies those gains by rewarding Oracle’s new role as a key enabler of the AI boom.
Step 4: Larry Ellison’s Billionaire “Blip”
Oracle’s co-founder Larry Ellison owns roughly 43% of the company, so when the stock pops, his fortune moves with it.
On September 10, 2025, Ellison’s net worth jumped by over $100 billion in a single day, peaking at around $400 billion. For a brief moment, he overtook Elon Musk as the world’s richest person, becoming only the second individual in history to cross the $400 billion mark.
The ranking didn’t last—Tesla’s own stock soon rebounded—but the moment symbolized something larger: Oracle, once derided as a “database dinosaur,” had roared back to relevance, fueled by the AI revolution.
Step 5: Risks, Rewards, and the Road Ahead
Oracle’s resurgence is a case study in timing, vision, and leverage. The company did not try to reinvent itself as an AI lab. Instead, it chose the more scalable—and perhaps more lucrative—role of infrastructure provider.
Rewards:
Multi-billion-dollar recurring revenue streams.
Stock performance that validates Oracle’s pivot.
A new place alongside AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud in the trillion-dollar AI infrastructure race.
Risks:
Capital intensity. Building gigawatt-scale data centers requires massive debt and exposes Oracle if demand cools.
Bubble dynamics. Skeptics warn of AI hype echoing the dot-com boom; if demand for GPT-scale models slows, Oracle could be left with overbuilt capacity.
Regulation and geopolitics. Data centers consume nuclear-scale energy, sparking environmental and national security scrutiny. Antitrust regulators may also bristle at the concentration of compute in a few hands.
Conclusion: Oracle’s Place in the AI Epoch
In the gold rush of AI, Oracle has chosen to sell the picks and shovels. It is betting that no matter who builds the next breakthrough model—OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, or xAI—they will need compute, and Oracle will be there to provide it.
The transformation from a legacy database firm to an AI infrastructure powerhouse is one of the most remarkable corporate pivots in modern tech history. Oracle’s deals have not only revived its stock and reshaped Ellison’s fortune; they have also positioned the company at the center of AI’s future.
Whether this proves a sustainable foundation or the peak of an AI bubble remains to be seen. But for now, Oracle’s ascent is a reminder that in the age of artificial intelligence, compute—not code—is king.
एआई के अखाड़े में ओरेकल का उदय: डेटाबेस दिग्गज से कम्प्यूट पावरहाउस तक
दशकों तक ओरेकल का नाम एंटरप्राइज़ डेटाबेस का पर्याय रहा। लैरी एलिसन की कंपनी ने अपनी संपत्ति कॉर्पोरेट बैक ऑफिस, सरकारी सिस्टम और वित्तीय संस्थानों को ताकत देने पर बनाई। लेकिन 2010 के दशक के आखिर तक, ओरेकल को एक “लेगेसी” खिलाड़ी माना जाने लगा—भरोसेमंद, पर अत्याधुनिक नहीं। सितंबर 2025 तक आते-आते तस्वीर पलट गई। ओरेकल अब वैश्विक आर्टिफिशियल इंटेलिजेंस (एआई) इन्फ्रास्ट्रक्चर की दौड़ में केंद्र में है—सैकड़ों अरब डॉलर के क्लाउड समझौते, गीगावॉट पैमाने के डेटा सेंटर निर्माण, और एक क्षणिक पल जब एलिसन दुनिया के सबसे अमीर इंसान बने।
यह बदलाव चैटजीपीटी जैसी अगली पीढ़ी की एआई बनाने के बारे में नहीं है। यह उससे भी ज़्यादा बुनियादी है: एआई को संभव बनाने वाली कच्ची शक्ति—कम्प्यूट, स्टोरेज और ऊर्जा—बेचने के बारे में। ऐसा करते हुए, ओरेकल ने खुद को एआई युग की अनिवार्य “यूटिलिटी” के रूप में पुनर्परिभाषित किया है।
चरण 1: सॉफ़्टवेयर से कम्प्यूट प्रदाता तक
ओरेकल का असली मोड़ 2023–24 में Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) प्लेटफ़ॉर्म के साथ आया। अमेज़न वेब सर्विसेज़ या माइक्रोसॉफ़्ट एज़्योर से हर क्षेत्र में मुकाबला करने की बजाय, ओरेकल ने एआई-ऑप्टिमाइज़्ड हाई-परफ़ॉर्मेंस क्लाउड में अपनी जगह बनाई।
दो बड़े बदलाव यहाँ अहम रहे:
मुख्य उत्पादों में एआई को शामिल करना। Oracle AI Vector Search और Select AI जैसी सुविधाएँ आईं, जिनसे एंटरप्राइज़ ग्राहक अपनी निजी डेटा पर बड़े भाषा मॉडल (LLM) सुरक्षित रूप से चला सकते हैं।
कम्प्यूट बैकबोन बनना। ओरेकल ने मान्यता दी कि LLMs को ट्रेनिंग और रन करने के लिए विशाल कम्प्यूटेशनल शक्ति चाहिए। इसलिए कंपनी ने GPUs, नेटवर्किंग और ऊर्जा-भूखे डेटा सेंटरों पर दांव लगाया। खुद मॉडल बनाने के बजाय, ओरेकल ने खुद को उस आधारभूत ढांचे के रूप में पेश किया, जिस पर अन्य (OpenAI, xAI, Meta आदि) निर्माण करेंगे।
वित्तीय दृष्टि से ये सौदे सिर्फ़ बिक्री नहीं बल्कि निवेश की तरह काम करते हैं। ओरेकल अरबों खर्च कर डेटा सेंटर और NVIDIA GPUs खरीदता है। बदले में, यह लंबी अवधि के अनुबंध करता है जो सालों तक निश्चित राजस्व की गारंटी देते हैं। यह ऐसा निवेश है, जो तुरंत नकदी प्रवाह देता है और एआई मांग के बढ़ने के साथ मूल्य में भी इज़ाफ़ा करता है।
चरण 2: साझेदारियाँ जिन्होंने खेल बदल दिया
ओरेकल की एआई रणनीति का नगीना है उसका OpenAI के साथ गठजोड़।
जून 2024: ओरेकल, माइक्रोसॉफ़्ट और OpenAI ने एज़्योर एआई की क्षमता OCI तक बढ़ाई।
जुलाई 2025: ओरेकल ने OpenAI को 4.5 गीगावॉट डेटा सेंटर क्षमता देने का वादा किया—कई न्यूक्लियर पावर प्लांट्स जितनी ऊर्जा के बराबर।
सितंबर 2025: ओरेकल और OpenAI ने पाँच साल का 300 अरब डॉलर का ऐतिहासिक समझौता किया—क्लाउड इतिहास का सबसे बड़ा अनुबंध।
यह केवल एक साइट का मामला नहीं है—यह पूरे अमेरिका में “स्टारगेट” डेटा सेंटर बनाने की परियोजना है, टेक्सास से लेकर पेनसिल्वेनिया, न्यू मेक्सिको और ओहायो तक। साथ ही, ओरेकल और सॉफ्टबैंक पाँच और साइटों का वित्त पोषण कर रहे हैं, 10 गीगावॉट क्षमता और 500 अरब डॉलर निवेश की योजना के तहत।
और OpenAI ही सब कुछ नहीं है। सितंबर 2025 में मीडिया रिपोर्ट्स ने Meta के साथ 20 अरब डॉलर का सौदा बताया। ओरेकल NVIDIA, AMD और यहां तक कि Google Cloud जैसे प्रतिस्पर्धियों के साथ भी साझेदारियाँ बढ़ा रहा है। परिणामस्वरूप, ओरेकल की Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO)—भविष्य के अनुबंधित राजस्व—455 अरब डॉलर तक पहुँच गई।
यह पारिस्थितिकी तंत्र एक “ओरोबोरस” (स्वयं को खाने वाला सर्प) जैसा दिखता है: OpenAI पूँजी जुटाता है, अरबों ओरेकल को देता है; ओरेकल GPUs NVIDIA से खरीदता है; NVIDIA फिर OpenAI में निवेश करता है। चक्र खुद को खिलाता है, लेकिन यह भी दिखाता है कि एआई सप्लाई चेन में ओरेकल कितनी अहम हो गया है।
चरण 3: बिक्री से शेयर बाज़ार की उछाल तक
जब भी ओरेकल कोई विशाल सौदा घोषित करता है, निवेशक कंपनी को एआई इन्फ्रास्ट्रक्चर लीडर के रूप में पुनः मूल्यांकित करते हैं।
10–11 सितंबर 2025: 300 अरब डॉलर के OpenAI सौदे की खबर से ओरेकल का शेयर दो दिन में 36–43% उछल गया—1992 के बाद की सबसे बड़ी छलांग। बाज़ार पूंजीकरण 900 अरब डॉलर पार कर गया।
बैकलॉग की ताकत: 455 अरब डॉलर का RPO निवेशकों को दिखाता है कि मांग सालों तक पक्की है। ओरेकल केवल सर्वर नहीं बेच रहा—वह एआई का भविष्य पहले से बेच चुका है।
यहाँ बिक्री-निवेश का तर्क साफ़ है। महंगे डेटा सेंटर बनाने के बाद भी ओरेकल को लंबे अनुबंधों से तुरंत नकदी मिल जाती है। और शेयर बाज़ार उस मूल्य को और कई गुना बढ़ा देता है।
चरण 4: लैरी एलिसन का अरबपति “ब्लिप”
ओरेकल के सह-संस्थापक लैरी एलिसन के पास लगभग 43% हिस्सेदारी है। इस कारण स्टॉक में हर उछाल सीधे उनकी दौलत को प्रभावित करता है।
10 सितंबर 2025 को, एक ही दिन में उनकी नेटवर्थ 100 अरब डॉलर से ज़्यादा बढ़ गई, और लगभग 400 अरब डॉलर तक पहुँच गई। उन्होंने संक्षिप्त समय के लिए एलन मस्क को पीछे छोड़ दुनिया के सबसे अमीर व्यक्ति का दर्जा हासिल किया।
हालाँकि यह पल ज़्यादा देर टिक नहीं पाया, पर इसने बड़ा संदेश दिया: जिसे कभी “डेटाबेस डायनासोर” कहा जाता था, वही ओरेकल अब एआई क्रांति की ताकत से फिर शिखर पर है।
चरण 5: जोखिम, इनाम और आगे का रास्ता
ओरेकल का उदय समय, दृष्टि और लीवरेज का पाठ है। कंपनी ने खुद को एआई लैब बनाने की कोशिश नहीं की, बल्कि इन्फ्रास्ट्रक्चर प्रदाता की भूमिका चुनी।
इनाम:
अरबों डॉलर का निश्चित राजस्व।
शेयर प्रदर्शन जिसने ओरेकल की रणनीति को वैधता दी।
AWS, एज़्योर और Google Cloud के साथ एआई इन्फ्रा दौड़ में जगह।
जोखिम:
पूँजी गहनता। गीगावॉट पैमाने पर डेटा सेंटर बनाने के लिए भारी कर्ज़ चाहिए और मांग कम हुई तो समस्या होगी।
बबल का डर। आलोचक कहते हैं कि एआई हाइप डॉट-कॉम बबल जैसा हो सकता है; मांग घटते ही ओरेकल के पास अतिरिक्त क्षमता रह जाएगी।
नियमन और भू-राजनीति। इतने बड़े पैमाने पर ऊर्जा खपत पर्यावरण और सुरक्षा की बहस को जन्म देती है। कुछ मुट्ठीभर कंपनियों में कम्प्यूट का केंद्रित होना एंटीट्रस्ट जांच भी खींच सकता है।
निष्कर्ष: एआई युग में ओरेकल की जगह
एआई की “गोल्ड रश” में ओरेकल ने कुदाल और फावड़े बेचना चुना। इसका दांव यह है कि चाहे अगला बड़ा मॉडल कोई भी बनाए—OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic या xAI—उन्हें कम्प्यूट की ज़रूरत होगी, और वह ओरेकल से मिलेगी।
“लेगेसी” डेटाबेस कंपनी से एआई इन्फ्रास्ट्रक्चर पावरहाउस तक का यह बदलाव आधुनिक टेक इतिहास के सबसे उल्लेखनीय कॉरपोरेट पिवट्स में से एक है। इससे न केवल ओरेकल का स्टॉक उछला और एलिसन की दौलत बढ़ी, बल्कि कंपनी को एआई के भविष्य के केंद्र में ला खड़ा किया।
यह नींव स्थायी साबित होगी या एआई बबल का शिखर, यह अभी स्पष्ट नहीं है। लेकिन फिलहाल इतना साफ़ है: एआई के युग में कोड नहीं, कम्प्यूट ही असली राजा है।
There was a time when open source felt like a crusade. It was considered rebellious. Microsoft talked it down. Now the biggest corporations depend on open source to do cutting edge work. Open source is like this big ocean you fish in.
open source is now mainstream and a new norm .... After more than a decade of the low-cost, lean startup culture successfully developing on open source tools, it’s clearly a legitimate, mainstream option for technology tools and innovation. ..... large organizations are actively adopting many of the open source technologies we track, e.g., web development frameworks, programming languages, content management, data management and analysis tools .... MySQL appears as popular as ever and remains open source after three years of Oracle control and Microsoft is pushing open source JavaScript as a key part of its web development environment and more explicit support for other open source languages. Oracle and Microsoft are not likely to radically change their business models, but their recent efforts show that open source can work in many business contexts. ..... open source permeates most interactions on the web. ..... the collaborative, sharing culture that permeates the open source community spreads to the enterprise and government with the same impact on innovation and productivity.
You have to ask, what drives and sustains the open source contributors? A lot of people toil on open source projects with no monetary return in sight or mind. I think they are responding to a basic creative urge.
"I don’t know if you can copyright a language."
- Larry Ellison
"Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun's genetic code. Alas.... I hope to avoid getting dragged into the fray: they only picked one of my patents (RE38,104) to sue over."
- Java creator James Gosling
Microsoft is wrong in milking the Android handset manufacturers. And Google is even more in the wrong in not defending those manufacturers. And now here comes Larry Ellison. You can't patent APIs, Larry.
Nothing prevents Larry Ellison from modifying Android - Kindle, anyone? - to put out a smartphone product that would be yet another interaction point to the many databases he sells. But that would be innovation.
Larry Ellison is so in the wrong here, it's not even funny. I get the impression the guy is clowning around Steve Jobs' grave. There has got to be better ways to express sentiments than to try and snatch from the peoples of the Global South their number one pathway to the Internet. And to think Android is older than the iOS.
The PC could not have been patented. The tablet can not be patented. The smartphone can not be patented.
And so Larry Ellison is going to unleash "thermonuclear war" on his best friend's behalf. If he wins, he gets 20 million dollars, right? Is that "thermonuclear war?"
Image via CrunchBaseI have not dug into the details, but what I know is Android was supposed to be free. And I get the impression both Microsoft and Oracle are after Android. This is sad.
But Sun's Java went open source a long time ago, no? What seems to be the problem?
Larry Ellison going after SAP is fun, but this is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Android has to be kept free. It is to do with humanity. The leftover swathes of humanity, if they ever will come online, Android will be it. And it makes no sense to jack up the prices. You do that and less people get to come online.
For the first time I am wishing retirement upon Steve Ballmer and Larry Ellison.
Leave Android alone.
The gist of the story is this: the PC guys - Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer, Larry Ellison - are going after the Internet guy - Larry Page.
The story should end thus: software patents should be disallowed. The patent trolls have been creating mayhem. Takes energy away from innovation.
Larry's own life is full of paradigm shifts. My favorite detail probably is when one of his wives left him for a HarvardMBA. Wait, there is another. One of his wives had the option to take the family pickup or Oracle stocks. She picked the pickup truck.
The very best entrepreneurs cascade from paradigm shift to paradigm shift. Ordinary mortals don't even see the tsunami coming. When you ride the wave - you could also call it the tiger - a lot of your assumptions get challenged. What was just true is no longer true. And that is a hard thing to navigate. The ordinary person feels tremendously unsafe when that happens.
I look at the details of Larry's personal life, one failed marriage after another, and the many paradigm shifts Oracle has navigated, and no wonder I think his biography reads like fascinating.
Freshly divorced yet one more time Larry shot this email to a friend: "Congrats on getting and staying married!"
Wall Street Journal: Ellison Says Oracle Will 'Go After' H-P: Mr. Ellison said the new hardware—a "supercluster" of Sparc-based servers—set a record for online transaction processing, a measure of performance for running database software, "for any database running on any computer at any time." ..... "We think the H-P machines are vulnerable. We think they're slow," Mr. Ellison said. "We're going to go after them in the marketplace with better software, better hardware and better people, and we're going to win market share." ..... "I like IBM, and I don't want to tease them very much." ....... Oracle and H-P were once close partners. In 2008, Oracle announced an exclusive partnership with H-P to offer a system bundled with Oracle database software—dubbed Exadata—only to drop that arrangement and substitute Sun hardware as a result of the acquisition.
Larry Ellison thinks in terms of enemies. And in Apothepo he has found one. Getting rid of Apothepo is not going to get Larry to take his eyes off of HP, but that might help a little, just a little. But HP is going to exhibit self destructive behavior by sticking to Apothepo for as long as possible.
Larry asked for two billion. SAP offered 20 million. So Larry upped the ante. He asked for four billion. Looks like he has been awarded close to what he asked for. Asking for two billion and getting 1.3 billion is close.
Oracle Corp has hired private investigators to track down Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker, believing testimony by the former SAP chief will help its efforts to claim about $4 billion in damages for software theft .... Oracle has subpoenaed Apotheker -- who began his job only last Monday -- but HP has refused to accept the subpoena, saying the U.S. software corporation is trying to harass him. .... their new chief, whose appointment surprised Wall Street and Silicon Valley ..... Oracle and Europe's top software maker are engaged in a legal battle that has transfixed Silicon Valley ...... Apotheker's lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher also Image via CrunchBaserefused to accept the subpoena. If he is overseas, Oracle will be unable to serve him and have to await his arrival in California
I can see the point behind the lawsuit. SAP admitted guilt a long time ago. And I can see why Apothepo needs to be deposed. I guess I even see the point in hiring detectives. But it does get quite dramatic at that point. That hiring detectives part is signature Larry Ellison.
Ben's Blog: Ben Horowitz: In Defense of Standards, Ethics, and Honest Financial Reporting at Hewlett-Packard: my business partner, Marc Andreessen, is on the board of directors of Hewlett-Packard. I note that I have no inside information, and this blog post is based purely on published material. In 2007, I sold Opsware, the company that I founded and ran to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6B. I worked at Hewlett-Packard from 2007 to 2008 as an executive in the software business. Recently, my old company Hewlett-Packard has been in the news—and not in a good way. ....... HP employs over 300,000 people. ..... Jodie Fisher had more access to the CEO and was paid more than 99.9% of HP’s workforce, despite having no traditional qualifications. ...... It is not an easy thing to fire a popular, highly successful CEO.
Something tells me this drama is far from over. The Oracle-HP alliance is now a full blown rivalry. This is about money. Like they say, follow the money. Oracle is now firmly in the hardware business as well, and HP feels eaten up. Oracle can do hardware, but could HP do Oracle-like software?
This is not about people getting along, or not getting along. This is about the money. And Larry Ellison might be dramatic, but he is first and foremost a businessman. His flare ups are market signals. Watch them and you are watching an industry churning.
New York Times: A Double Standard at H.P.: Oracle and H.P. had once been the closest of partners, with the latter selling the industrial-strength hardware that ran Oracle’s industrial-strength software. But that partnership appears to be dissolving. ..... Larry Ellison, Oracle’s flamboyant founder ..... “Hiring him had nothing to do with fighting Oracle,” said Ray Lane, the former Oracle (!) president who is set to become H.P.’s chairman next month. “The board chose Léo because he was the best available athlete.” .... Apotheker was likely to further traumatize the already demoralized H.P. staff. ..... “If you wanted to find someone who represented the diametrical opposite of the H.P. way, it is Léo,” said Jason Maynard, a veteran technology analyst with Wells Fargo Securities. “He is tough as nails and chews glass for breakfast.” ...... the same board that viewed Mr. Hurd’s minor expense account shenanigans as intolerable has chosen as its new C.E.O. someone involved — however tangentially — with the most serious business crime you can commit. ..... the chance to embarrass H.P. and its new C.E.O. is likely to be irresistible to Oracle and Mr. Ellison. Which will mean yet more egg on the faces of the H.P. directors.
Image via CrunchBaseMy favorite TechCrunch writer - Sarah Lacy - has a piece on my favorite character in tech: Larry Ellison. Coincidence?
This Leo Apotheker - (please do not ask me to pronounce the dude's last name) - move by HP is all human drama, and n-o-t-h-i-n-g to do with technology.
It is like after Bush 2004 burnt into John Kerry's forearm that he was a Mr. Flip Flop, Kerry duly delivered the line afterwards: "I actually voted for the Iraq War before I voted against it."
Losers have a way of falling into the mousetrap neatly laid out for them.
I mean, duh. What was the HP Board thinking? They are like, okay Larry, hit me baby one more time. HP has been primarily a hardware company. Name one HP software product, quick. You can't. Name one HP enterprise software product. I don't think such a thing exists. And they got Thepo. HP's days as an independent company might be numbered.
This Apothepo guy used to run SAP when SAP was actually competing with Oracle. SAP to this day prides itself in being an all software company. They think Larry going into hardware is a mistake. To Larry's credit he thinks SAP's very existence is a mistake. That is not a fight between equals. Ring the bells, end the fight.
Wall Street Journal: Larry Ellison ‘Speechless’ Over New CEO of H-P: Larry Ellison, the outspoken CEO of Oracle, said he is having trouble finding words to describe his reaction to H-P naming former SAP chief Leo Apotheker as its new top man–and then found plenty of them. .... SAP, where Apotheker worked for more than 20 years, is Oracle’s largest competitor for business-application programs, and Ellison seldom misses an opportunity to take pot shots at the company. ..... When Oracle and H-P settled the lawsuit regarding Hurd’s hiring, both companies put out statements lauding the other as a valuable partner.
My reading of the situation is and has been for a few years now that Larry Ellison believes his industry - data software - is going through what he calls a consolidation phase, and hence his relentless buying spree. His promise to the customer has been you will get simpler, integrated software. And now, after buying Sun, he is doing what his best friend Steve Jobs has been doing for a long time now: software hardware integration.
Bill Gates left the scene, but Larry never stopped competing. Larry want to do what Jobs did. He wants to surpass Microsoft in market value, and he is on his way.
New York Times: Oracle Growth Plans Worry Rivals and Customers: its larger ambitions — to supply just about all the technology, software and hardware, that businesses might need .... sales of $26.8 billion last year and hints of an annual revenue goal of $100 billion ... acquired a staggering 66 companies .... They bought every company we deal with. ...... Oracle’s sales representatives have earned a fearsome reputation as hard-line negotiators determined to squeeze customers. ...... complete systems rather than requiring customers to cobble together the parts. ...... Fusion ..... data center conquest plans clear ..... 60 percent of the food coming from within 100 miles of the city. .... paid $1,800 to attend the conference and runs her own software consulting business in Portland, Ore ..... a signal that Oracle intends to get aggressive and pursue growth
In The News
eWeek: Java Creator James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle: “For the privilege of working for Oracle, they wanted me to take a big pay cut,” Gosling said. .... “In my job offer, they had me at a fairly significant grade level down,” he said. ..... All of our authority to decide anything evaporated.” ..... “My job seemed to be to get up on stage and be a public presence for Java for Oracle. I’m from the wrong Myers-Briggs quadrant for that,” he said. .... Gosling already had the sense that Oracle was “ethically challenged” .... they believed “Oracle would be more savage, IBM would make more layoffs.” .... Gosling says he felt the hand of Larry Ellison in nearly all the decisions affecting Java ..... Gosling paints the picture of Ellison being like a sports magnate from his sister city, Al “Just Win Baby” Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders, who continually hires coaches and drafts talent only to run the show himself. ...... although Gosling said he never had direct dealings with Ellison, “He’s the kind of person that just gives me the creeps,” he said. “All of the senior people at Sun got screwed compensation-wise. Their job titles may have been the same, but their ability to decide anything was just gone.” ....... Java is bigger than any single vendor.”
ArsTechnica: Oracle surprises with new Sparc chip launch: Now christened the Sparc T3, the new processor will power a collection of Solaris-based T-series servers for Oracle, and will ship in 30 days.
Wired: Writer for iPad Aims For Focus, Beauty, Simplicity:When you put the application in “Focus Mode,” it doesn’t even have spellcheck or cut-and-paste. Instead, it’s all about textual production — writing this phrase, this sentence, this word at this moment. As the creators note, “the idea is to activate it when you get stuck, blinding out everything else.”
New York Times: Google Campaign to Build Up Its Display Ads:More than 90 percent of Google’s revenue comes from text ads, and analysts say that Google’s stock is down about 17 percent this year because investors are waiting for the company’s second act.
For the Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again: Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older .... more than a third of people not yet retired plan to work beyond age 65, compared with just 12 percent in 1995. .... “That’s what I spent my whole life in pursuit of, was security,” Ms. Reid said. “Until the last few years, I felt very secure in my job.” ..... was let go from her $80,000-a-year job. ..... Her husband worries that she isolates herself and that she does not socialize enough. ..... “A job is more than a job, you know,” Mr. Mielock said. “It’s where you fit in society.” .... how to age-proof their résumés and deflect questions about being overqualified. ..... For now, she stitches together an income by gardening for neighbors, helping fellow church members with their computers, and participating in Internet surveys for as little as $5 apiece.
Just Manic Enough: Seeking Perfect Entrepreneurs: a hypomanic episode..... symptoms include grandiosity, an elevated and expansive mood, racing thoughts and little need for sleep.... He can work 96 hours in a row. .... a thin line separates the temperament of a promising entrepreneur from a person who could use, as they say in psychiatry, a little help. ..... just crazy enough .... “If you’re manic, you think you’re Jesus. If you’re hypomanic, you think you are God’s gift to technology investing.” ..... Instead of recklessness, the entrepreneur loves risk. Instead of delusions, the entrepreneur imagines a product that sounds so compelling that it inspires people to bet their careers, or a lot of money, on something that doesn’t exist and may never sell. ..... Next Zuckerberg Syndrome — the urge to find another Mark Zuckerberg before he starts another Facebook. ...... He does not socialize. He no longer reads books, nor does he watch TV or movies. He works from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., seven days a week. ....... Jobs is also routinely described as a despot and control freak with a terrifying temper .... He is a gifted software engineer but a terrible driver. (“I hit things,” he says.) He’s perfectly at ease negotiating with V.C.’s, but has had just one girlfriend .... “I want to build the game layer on top of the world.”
The Long View of China’s Currency: The renminbi itself rose 21 percent against the dollar from 2005 to 2008, and the trade deficit continued to widen. .... A stronger renminbi will help China’s people — many of whom are hungry for better living standards, to judge by the recent labor strikes — buy more goods and services, and it will also help the rest of world produce more...... economies, like battleships, tend to turn slowly ..... But exports probably matter more for American jobs anyway, given that low-end toy manufacturing in Guangdong Province isn’t moving to Alabama or Michigan. ...... $10 billion of gross domestic product equals about 80,000 jobs on average. So every extra $10 billion of goods sold to China is like its own little stimulus program. ...... not all the items on the United States’ forbidden list are truly matters of national security.
TechCrunch: Zynga Moves 1 Petabyte Of Data Daily; Adds 1,000 Servers A Week:social gaming giant Zynga is one of the fastest growing tech companies of all time .... 10 percent of the world’s internet population (approximately 215 million monthly users) has played a Zynga game. .... more than 1,200 full time employees and includes 13 game studios.
CNet: Google News turns 8 amid news industry in flux:the site is currently driving 1 billion page views to news publishers' Web sites per month and Google currently operates 72 separate editions of Google News in 30 different languages....Google, raised in the church of data ..... the rise in "news spam," SEO-bait articles often written by low-paid freelancers that are designed mostly to surface within Google, rather than inform, educate, or entertain readers with coherent writing..... "content mills" like Associated Content and Demand Media are churning out short news-related pieces of content by the thousands in hopes of driving traffic to their sites
