Oracle is kind of like the vendor that people love to hate. Its founder and CTO, Larry Ellison, is something of a divisive figure: one of the richest people in the world who owns an island and spends his time sponsoring big yacht races.
However, one thing Ellison is not is a shrinking violet. And Oracle itself, while powering a huge proposition of enterprise IT, is seen as a bit of a “bad boy” in the industry: slow, demanding, expensive, and litigious. Much of those perceptions, while having a basis in truth, are a little unfair – Oracle is a massive organization and simplifying it down to a few cliches just doesn’t paint the true picture.
So for all of these reasons, I was fascinated to experience OpenWorld up close. So, what did Oracle announce, and what does it mean? Well, first, some context. In a pretty bullish talk early in the show, Mark Hurd, co-CEO of Oracle, made a number of pretty amazing predictions:
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