Can Oracle survive Larry Ellison?
In December 1998, Larry Ellison was steering his maxi-yacht, Sayonara, when it was caught in a fierce, unexpected storm. Sayonara would win the Sydney-to-Hobart race off the coast of Australia that year, but not with Ellison at the helm. As the storm raged about him, claiming the lives of six sailors on other boats, the Oracle chief executive relinquished the wheel to a professional sailor. “I couldn’t handle it,” he later explained. “There were no stars; I didn’t know what to steer by. I had to turn the wheel over (to someone else). You discover your own limits.” You could say that Ellison finds himself in a similar position today, metaphorically speaking. Still at the helm of the company he founded almost a quarter-century ago, the flamboyant CEO faces heavy turbulence in Oracle’s two primary lines of business. In its database stronghold, Oracle is seriously challenged by IBM and Microsoft. In business applications, Oracle’s hostile bid for PeopleSoft appears to be failing. PeopleSof
