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Softwar : An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison
Matthew Symonds took a leave of absence from The Economist in March 2000 to follow Ellison in his daily routines, his management meetings, his sales calls and his regattas. But he is not the only author of the book. After the manuscript was ready by Symonds' standards, Larry Ellison took over the footnotes. Both co-authors agreed not to change each other's text, but Ellison felt he had to clarify certain points about his life, career, and vision. Softwar is somewhere in the middle between biography and autobiography -- the life of Larry Ellison is retold by another author, although the book is uniquely personal with Ellison's remarks constantly adding to the personal touch of the book. Statements like "It was a big mistake, and it was my mistake. I didn't think that Microsoft Windows would crush IBM OS/2 and all the other desktop systems -- but it did" allow Ellison to showcase his personal viewpoint in a straightforward and succinct manner.
Unlike many biographies, Softwar doesn't start with Ellison's poverty-ridden childhood in a poor Russian-immigrant family, where he was an adopted kid. That story comes much later, but from the Chapter 1 we're involved in Oracle's selling process, with Ellison talking to the Japanese executives, Ellison giving a keynote speech, Ellison talking to his sales reps - it's all about Ellison, and it's all about selling. Rarely in the book will you see a description of the actual coding process or any description of software development practices at Oracle, which by revenue ranks second among the global software corporations. It's all about sales calls, support calls, commissions, discounts and sales numbers in the million and billion dollar range - Ellison is as concentrated on the financial revenues as a CEO could possibly be.
A supporter of open standards, Ellison does not like the cacophony of enterprise-scale products offered to the companies. "If Detroit ran like Silicon Valley, nobody would sell cars -- just parts", he proclaims. "Customers would have to figure out which were the best parts -- a Honda engine, a Ford transmission, a BMW chassis, GM electrical system -- and buy them and try to assemble them into a working car. Good luck. I know it sounds crazy, but that's how companies put together business systems today".
Since Symonds followed Ellison everywhere he went, the readers get to see Ellison's lifestyle, observe his Japanese gardens in Atherton, meet with Oracle vice-presidents and sales people, follow him in regattas, while listening to a heavy dose of why Oracle E-Business Suite is going to revolutionize many businesses around the country.
The author covers Ray Lane's departure from Oracle in great detail, while Ellison is profuse with comments on why Lane needed to be let go. Market moves of Oracle's main competitors -- Siebel, SAP and PeopleSoft -- are also followed closely, with obligatory disparaging remarks coming from Ellison about what's wrong with each competitor's business. Sometimes I felt the book got too much into describing Oracle politics, like departmental and subdivisional re-organizations with pointers on who was managing which operation, but perhaps the book would lose detail without it. If you have been employed at Oracle, or know some of the people personally, perhaps it's interesting; most of the time the descriptions of policy changes in sales force compensation is perhaps too mundane for a biographical book.
For instance, on page 139 Symonds describes Lane's pending departure to become the CEO of Novell. Symonds presents Lane's point of view:
"He said he'd talked to the board and he thought $2.5 million in options was the right number. You deserve it. I thought he'd gone way overboard, so of course I stayed. I didn't find out until I left Oracle that the board was pissed off about this. No one ever told me, and I certainly wasn't holding Oracle up for money."Lane's quote is followed by an asterisk with a footnote from Ellison: "Not a holdup? He said he was going to Novell because of the money. I offered him more money to stay. It was a classic holdup. He stayed."
This book being a recent publication, it covers a lot of Oracle products in detail, supplemented by Ellison's viewpoints on how this or that product is going to change a certain business or industry. While Oracle is hardly a household name outside the IT field, the author makes a great effort to explain Oracle server product family in simple terms, without going too basic. Competition (and general resentment) with Microsoft runs throughout the company, and Ellison is not afraid to accentuate it. Mark Jarvis, a senior marketing official, supplied an interesting quote about Microsoft's practices and current Linux outlook: "Linux is the first thing that customers ask about. They love it." And as for Microsoft, "When they felt threatened by Netscape, it was just another company with a known HQ that could go out and bomb. But that won't work with Linux, just as it didn't work with Apache. Apache creamed them, and so will Linux. Microsoft has lost the server war."
Softwar provides an interesting insight into one of the largest software corporations, its business practices and famous personality of its chief executive officer. While this book prefers not to discuss the burned-up Ferraris on Highway 101 and personal jet fighters, we see Ellison as a serious and dedicated businessman. Ellison shares his experience from the past mistakes, talks about the current practices, and what he sees best for the company, emphasizes the idea of network computer as still useful and applicable to desktops, envisions Linux taking over the world (with Oracle supplying a lot of backend databases) and provides his insight into the future of technology. The book is a great read for those willing to find out more about Oracle or Ellison personally, as well as a primer on technology development and its future (from Oracle standpoint).
You can purchase Softwar from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Hey fellow Geeks....
Be like Larry... dress nicely.
If I have *one* peice of advice that will help you get more more, respect and more oppertunities with the opposite sex....
Be like Larry... dress nicely. It *really* worked for me: treat it like a game, say to yourself "I'll play their little status game, and I'll *WIN*".
Even the most inteligent, thoughtfull potential mate will be more interested in you if you dress nicely - not gaudy, just nicely. JC Penny no-iron slacks and no-iron shits, with some really comfortable ECHO shoes and a decent Seiko watch are just fine. The JC Peenny slacks and shirt are economical - their made with poliester so they last a long time and don't abosrb stains.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Just as they copy everything else Amazon does, B&N has now copied the free shipping for orders of $25 and up. We'll see how long that lasts. But what they haven't matched is that at Amazon, you pay no taxes.