Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I discuss the significant leadership changes at Oracle and what they signal for the company’s future.
Highlights
00:03 — One of the things that has become clear over the last several months is that there are big changes taking place at the top of Oracle. I wanted to go into that a little bit, particularly how this is all leading up to what is an excellent new adventure for company co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison.
00:21 — I think it’s a remarkable time here. Now, clearly, I’m not saying that Larry Ellison is stepping aside. I mean, six months ago, we saw longtime CEO Safra Katz move from CEO. She elected to move to the new position of executive vice chairman. In those six months, we’ve also seen the ascendancy of new CEOs, Mike Sicilia and Clay Magouyrk.
01:09 — Again, this is not about Larry Ellison leaving. I think the new adventure he has was really brought into clear light on the March 10 fiscal Q3 earnings call for Oracle, when there was no opening statement by Larry Ellison. I mean, that’s something he’s done for the last 150, 160 earnings calls.
01:50 — Then, in the Q&A session on that March 10 earnings call, there were seven questions asked. None of them was aimed at Larry Ellison. They were all aimed at Magouyrk and Sicilia. After the final question, he added some thoughts to what Mike Sicilia had said. His point there is to say these are the new leaders of Oracle, the people helping now to set the direction, execute it, and make sure we’re going in the right way.
02:40 — The new CEOs are doing a great job. In my estimation, the way they handled themselves in the answers on the March 10 earnings call was terrific. They were very, very, very persuasive, impressive, and compelling. So we can say this is the end of an era, but I think another way to look at it is that it’s the beginning of a new era for Oracle.
04:05 — New ideas, speed, the ability to do things that customers haven’t ever done before — and Sicilia and Magouyrk clearly have won the full confidence of Larry Ellison and Safra Catz, who believe now, as Ellison said on that March 10 earnings call, Oracle’s future is bright.
