Optimistic and confident seem confining words to describe Oracle Corp. founder CEO Larry Ellison. Jaunty, brash and cocky fit better.
So it’s no surprise that on the eve of Oracle OpenWorld in San Francsico, which opens Oct. 1, Forbes reminds us that earlier this month Ellison had pretty well dismissed competition from IBM’s DB2 and Microsoft’s SQL Server, and is setting his sights lower in the market.
In a conference call with financial analysts, he hinted that Oracle has left others so far behind that now he can think about dealing with Teradata Corp.
(Larry Ellison, 2011. Photo by drserg via Shutterstock)
According to IDC, last year Oracle pulled in $12 billion dollars in database sales, compared to US$5.1 billion for IBM and $4.9 billion for Microsoft.
Oracle isn’t doing badly, according to the financial results released Sept. 20. Measured by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), new software license and cloud software subscriptions revenues were up 5 per cent to US$1.6 billion. Overall, however, revenues were down 2 per cent. In a press release issued at the time of the results Ellison said enhancements to the Oracle Cloud are coming. These are expected to be announced at OpenWorld.