11 Mar
Ellison on hostile acquisitions
Fake Steve Jobs links to a piece in the New Yorks Times by Andrew Ross Sorkin on Larry Ellison’s thoughts about the recent spate of hostile acquisitions (many of them by Oracle). Larry demonstrates his knack for a well-turned line. I have never worked for Big Red so I am not in a position to comment on his assessment of Oracle’s friendliness. But he has a very sound view of sales and marketing people:
“What makes you think that engineers are happier, for example, working at PeopleSoft rather than at Oracle?” he asked. “Who says it’s unfriendly?”The people who are most likely to scream and moan about an acquisition are the marketing people and salespeople — who, by the way, are the most dispensable, he said.