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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tech Master who wrote (7186)	5/25/1998 11:08:00 PM
From: grogger	Respond to of 19080

Tech Master, I know you are an ORCL bull but what lead you to believe they will beat estimates. The analysts day was not upbeat and their sector doesn;t seem healthy right now. I sure hope you're right about earnings though. we need some catalyst. Rob

To: Tech Master who wrote (7186)	5/26/1998 12:43:00 AM
From: James Luk	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19080

I agree with your positive outlook on ORCL. Would it be far-fetch for merger between ORCL and CA ? Any synergy here ? Will the two titans - CW and LE get along ?

To: Tech Master who wrote (7186)	5/26/1998 4:13:00 PM
From: Xpiderman	Respond to of 19080

Oracle's Network Initiative - Part One zdnet.com PC WEEK: With the Digital-Compaq merger almost final, have you had discussions with Compaq about its commitment to Digital Unix on Alpha? Ellison: I was just chatting with [Compaq CEO] Eckhard Pfeiffer for the last half-hour or so. Compaq's very smart-they're paying a 50 percent premium for Digital, so obviously they're not going to absorb that asset and then ignore it. [Digital] gives them serious play in both the high end and the low end of the enterprise space. The new Alpha processors are the fastest around. PC WEEK: How is your strategy evolving regarding Unix vs. NT? Ellison: We think Unix is still the high end of the enterprise space. The best [performance] we've ever done--the best anyone's ever done--on NT is 27,000 transactions per minute. The best anyone's ever done on Unix is 102,000 transactions per minute. So, the best of Unix is still four times better than the best of NT. Plus ,Unix is still much more reliable, much more scalable, much more manageable than NT. As companies consolidate data centers, Unix will start to make a resurgence against NT. The classic NT model is small servers everywhere. The problem with small servers everywhere is that the servers may be cheap and the software may be cheap, but the people to manage them are not cheap. If you start proliferating [small] servers everywhere, it's much more costly than small numbers of large servers because of the labor costs. People who have implemented lots and lots of NT are suddenly finding the savings aren't there because of labor costs. PC WEEK: How do your server revenues shake out right now between Unix and NT? Ellison: We're the largest supplier of databases on NT and the largest supplier of databases on Unix. So, we don't really care whether people buy NT or Unix. The issue really is where the customer gets the best value. And we think the customer gets the best value by consolidating data centers. PC WEEK: What about your Merced strategy? Ellison: We're partnered with Intel. Oracle is part of the test suite for Merced. We'll be exploiting the 64-bit operating system sooner than anybody. It's a critical architecture for us. PC WEEK: The database landscape has changed over the past few years. Where once your primary competitors were Sybase and Informix, now it's shaping up as Microsoft and IBM. Does that change your strategy at all? Ellison: No, not at all. We used to compete with Ingres and Rdb, then Sybase and Informix, now IBM and [Microsoft] SQL Server. We think SQL Server is improving-it's better than it was. But our best benchmarks are six times faster than their best benchmarks in transaction processing. Plus, we also have fault tolerance. Microsoft has no fault tolerance, they're not terribly scalable and they have problems handling large databases. They're addressing some of that in SQL Server 7, but they're still way, way behind. Microsoft will try to compete on cost, but the problem is that the database business is very different from the Web browser business. The real cost in owning a database is not what you pay for the software. It's what you pay to develop applications; it's what you pay to run applications. We have a much lower cost of ownership than SQL Server 7. So, even if Microsoft would give away SQL Server 7, that wouldn't be enough. They'd have to pay you to use SQL Server 7. PC WEEK: Have you tempered your projections for NC growth? Ellison: There are a number of [research] companies that forecast that by the year 2008 or something like that, network computers will outnumber PCs 10-1. PC WEEK: Is that a generic term they're using for 'NC'? Ellison: Yes. An NC is a computer that runs an Internet browser, that allows you through HTTP to get at Internet services. That's all it is. So a Nokia telephone could be an NC, a car navigation system could be an NC; in fact, a PC could be an NC. An interesting thing has happened since we first started talking about $500 network computers: The PC industry has mutated PCs and NCs. It's just staggering-PC pricing has dropped to under $800. PC WEEK: And you attribute that to the evolution of the NC concept? Ellison: I don't know why else they've dropped quite so fast. And I think they're on their way to $499 by next year. So we're at the $500 price point already. PC WEEK: Do those low-cost PCs push the traditional NC off the corporate desktop? Ellison: Probably. Your PC really becomes an appliance. The primary application where you live all day is an Internet browser, and the underlying operating system is irrelevant. The reason the NC idea was important was to get the price down to $500. The PC industry is moving rapidly in that direction. But there is a whole family of new appliances that are also becoming network computers. Your television is on its way to becoming a network computer. Telephones are becoming network computers.

To: Tech Master who wrote (7186)	5/26/1998 4:14:00 PM
From: Xpiderman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

Oracle's Network Initiative - Part Two zdnet.com PC WEEK: Is this taking Oracle into a new area? Ellison: All along, I've said the hard thing about network computing has nothing to do with the network computer. The easiest thing is building the appliance. There will be lots of appliances that access the Internet. What Oracle does is build the technology to help you create and maintain the network. PC WEEK: But you're also doing the client-side devices as well. Ellison: At NCI [Oracle's Network Computer Inc. subsidiary] we've been building two client devices--one is a corporate NC, one is a consumer NC, which we call NC TV. The NC TV has been tremendously successful, which will become more and more apparent. The corporate NC has really been eclipsed by the personal computer becoming a network computer, in price and in function. So, that's fine with us. We don't make a lot of money in that business, anyway. Where Oracle makes its money is in providing servers to serve network computers and personal computers. PC WEEK: Will you get out of that corporate space entirely? Ellison: We'll do some server stuff for the corporate space, but right now our big focus is going to be the consumer. PC WEEK: What areas specifically? Ellison: We'll start with TV. PC WEEK: What should the government do with Microsoft? Ellison: It's very interesting. Bill [Gates] says Microsoft has to be allowed to innovate. [That's] one of the most profoundly insincere and duplicitous statements I've ever heard in my life. Bill took an innovative company [Netscape], copied exactly what they're doing and gave it away for nothing in hopes of running them out of business. This is not innovation in technology; this is innovation in business competition. PC WEEK: How do you police that? Ellison: There are existing laws that say you're not allowed to use a monopoly, which Microsoft has in operating systems, to gain a competitive advantage in other areas. You can't simply take Internet browsers and glue them into your operating system and say, 'This is innovation.' If that's allowed, then Microsoft should be able to take any piece of software and give it away as part of the operating system. Where does the operating system end? Internet browser? Database? General ledger? Personal finance? Microsoft would have it that there's only one piece of software in the world-the operating system. And every other piece of software is nothing more than an innovation and extension to the operating system. PC WEEK: Is Microsoft vulnerable right now? Ellison: Microsoft has flagrantly abused their monopoly in going after Netscape, and existing laws provide remedies for that. PC WEEK: How do you feel about sitting in a room doing business with Eckhard Pfeiffer, knowing that after the meeting he's going over to stand up in support of Microsoft and Bill Gates [for Windows 98]? Ellison: He's not in the software business. Compaq is a customer of Microsoft; it's a Microsoft distribution partner. This is not exactly an objective point of view. PC WEEK: As an Apple board member, how do you feel about Microsoft's investment [last year] in Apple? Ellison: It was very important for Apple to gain access to the Microsoft Office applications. I think it's important that Apple be seen now as not a pure competitor with Microsoft but in 'coopetition'--competing in some areas, cooperating in others. Steve [Jobs] did a brilliant job in engineering both the partnership and making sure that for a long time to come, high-quality versions of Microsoft Office applications be available on the Mac. PC WEEK: Are you pushing Jobs to take the full-time CEO slot? Ellison: No one pushes Steve. Steve's perhaps the only genius we have in our own industry. He's done an extraordinary job bringing Apple back from the brink. Shipments are going up, the company's profitable, morale is great, we have some great new products in the pipeline. You really haven't seen Steve's products yet. He picked the best of the [existing] products and made some decisions to simplify things. He really killed about 80 percent of the products. But you're going to see the products Steve originated come out very shortly, and Apple will be back to innovating. Apple's future is in creating digital appliances--low-cost, very easy-to-use computers in the range of $500 to $1,500.