Live data from Hacker News

Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003)

businessweek.com

1–10 of 19 posts

Re: Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003)

#3
He's had a bit of a change of heart about Cloud Computing since 2003, eh?

2003: "But the thing I'm most interested in is software as a service. That idea that every customer who wants to do accounting on computers, or every customer who wants to do inventory, or manufacturing, has to figure out what computer to buy, what operating system to buy, what Cisco router and switch to buy, what database to buy, is just nonsense.

Companies should be experts in their business, and computing should be available on the Net as a service. So more and more, our business is changing from selling our applications to our customers to: We buy the computers, we run the applications, and you use it. We'll be the experts. And you just pay us a monthly fee. That really is utility computing."

2009: "Cloud’s water vapor….Cloud computing is not only the future of computing, it is the present and the entire past of computing.

…Salesforce.com has been around for a decade. And so has NetSuite…and people are saying, “Well, that’s cloud computing.” Google is cloud computing. Everyone is cloud computing….Everything is in the cloud now….It’s this nonsense.

…But it’s not water vapor. All it is is a computer attached to a network. What are you talking about? I mean, what do you think Google runs on?…Water vapor? It’s databases and operating systems and memory and microprocessors and the Internet!

…And the VCs, I love the VCs. [They ask their start-ups] “Oh…is that cloud?” [And the start-ups go] “Oh! Oh! Microsoft Word! Change ‘Internet’ to ‘cloud’! Mass change. Give it back to these nitwits on Sand Hill Road.”

…What do you mean by “cloud computing”?…All the cloud is is computers on a network.

Our industry is so bizarre. They just change a term and they think they’ve invented technology….You can’t just come up with a [slogan] like “Let’s call that ‘cloud.” [But] it sure beats innovation.”

Re: Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003)

#4
Repost but Larry Ellison, 2005 interview with SF Chronicle

The entire interview is interesting for Larry Ellison predicting the future and then implementing it.

"Q: Does that lead to a consolidation period?

A: The industry is maturing. It is going to consolidate. That's exactly what happened to every other industry. I didn't invent the idea of consolidation. What happens during a period of consolidation is (the company in) second place can suddenly move and become the winner.

One of the interesting things is (that) when you look at when the automobile industry, the clear winner in the early phase of the automobile industry was Henry Ford. Ford was the No. 1 car company in the world by far. Then a guy by the name of Alfred Sloan decided to get all of the good losers together -- Chevrolet and Buick and all those guys -- and built General Motors. Then General Motors passed Ford during the consolidation phase in the automobile industry.

So during the entrepreneurial growth phase, Ford won. During the consolidation phase, Ford lost and found itself in second place.

Q: So you don't want to be Henry Ford.

A: It's too late for anyone to be Henry Ford. That phase is over. We did pretty well in the database business. We have the No. 1 database in the world, and I'll argue that, at the dawn of the information age, that's not a bad position to have."

2003 - Peoplesoft acquires JD Edwards

January 2005 - Peoplesoft acquisition

January 2006 - Siebel acquisition

January 2008 - BEA acquisition

January 2010 - Sun acquisition

(via Wikipedia)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/08/...

Re: Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003)

#6
Larry Ellison always tries this scare tactics when the economy is bad, of course he needs to paint that big businesses are the only way to go. However we seeing that gigantic j2ee solutions with Oracle being to expensive and a move to a lot of cheaper OSS solutions like php, rails and django.

Re: Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003)

#7

He's had a bit of a change of heart about Cloud Computing since 2003, eh? 2003: "But the thing I'm most interested in is software as a service. That idea that every customer who wants to do accounting on computers, or every customer who wants to do inventory, or manufacturing, has to figure out what computer to buy, what operating system to buy, what Cisco router and switch to buy, what database to buy, is just nonse…

Haha Larry only says stuff to get people riled up and he is never impartial its always about his position with Oracle.

Re: Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003)

#8
post #5
post #2

(2003) more specifically from August 2003. Maybe someone can add that to the title.

The article is 6 years, 6 months, 6 days from today. Spooky. http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=8&#38...

Spooky? Why? Pick any day and you could find articles written 6 years, 6 months, and 6 days before that date.

Re: Larry Ellison: The Old Valley Is History (2003)

#10
post #5
post #2

(2003) more specifically from August 2003. Maybe someone can add that to the title.

The article is 6 years, 6 months, 6 days from today. Spooky. http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=8&#38...

Please, no more of that numerology nonsense :/
Post reply on HN