Michelle,
I appreciate your comments on this thread, as I do Michael Olin's. This type of interchange is what makes these boards so valuable. I wish I had more time to sift through these issues.
Here's my take from being an Oracle sales rep (various channels) from 1988 through 1994.
LJE is brilliant. Bill Gates class. Not sure I'd want my kids to model themselves after him, but an absolute visionary. Not a manager, though.
Henley, first rate. Had very small shoes to follow in Jeff Walker, but an outstanding CFO. One of the best. Really a class act.
Lane, one of the best high tech execs I've ever seen. A great leader, able to cut through the complexities of managing chaos and change and formulating and executing a credible strategy. Oracle was night and day pre- and post-Lane, though the changes started with Henley and Mike Fields. Both Henley and Fields don't get enough credit for taking the revenue hits to clean up all the bad business from the GDK days, and in Mike's case, for going out to the customer base asking forgiveness.
Shaw, not in Lane's class in intellectual firepower or leadership ability, but a quality, competent exec.
Now, with respect to the apps. By the time Lane got there, Oracle had squandered early leadership in apps, which was based on having the first RDBMS-based apps on the market. The early customer experiences from the Walker days (he also ran the Apps Division) were debacles. Plus the technology was based in SQL*Forms ... and was (and is) totally uncompetitive as a UI with R3 and PeopleSoft.
There were some discussions soon after Lane got there about whether ORCL should dump the apps. Also, there were discussions (I think based on a McKinsey study) of how Oracle was getting beat by IFMX and SYBS. Oracle re-focused on the RDBMS (Oracle7 didn't hurt), and buried IFMX and SYBS. And maintained a credible, though inferior position in the apps business to two focused competitors.
So now, the execs are focusing their attention on the apps business. Too little, too late? I don't know. Is R11 competitive? I just don't know. Are good execs (at least IMO) any guarantee of success? I doubt it.
Peter |
