Oh Thank God Oracle Has a New Rivalry [TechCrunch]

Check the link below for a round-up of Oracle competitive scenarios

Whether it’s his love of the ladies, his yachts, his mysterious lack of eyebrows, his strategic brilliance, his quick-witted jabs at competitors, random musings that he may buy Apple, or declarations that software is done as a category and he’d just buy everyone up, Larry Ellison has long been the software reporter’s gift that keeps on giving. Tony Stark in IronMan was reportedly based on a hybrid of Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, and I recognize way more Ellison than Musk in the depiction.

Only — pity for reporters– Ellison seems to have tired of the spotlight. Few magazine covers, no billion-dollar hostile takeovers, no wacky press conferences, no weird Shakepearian dramas with former proteges. Just a well-performing stock and growing business. Yawn.

Part of that is because Oracle either bought or trounced arch-rivals with its buy-not-build application strategy, and like most companies, Ellison becomes more interesting when he has a foil. It looks like that new foil is HP. Hallelujah, enterprise software is getting interesting again.

Oh Thank God Oracle Has a New Rivalry