Oracle

By CIO New Zealand staff | Monday, January 11 2010

Over the past four years, Oracle chief Larry Ellison has spent US$30 billion and acquired 56 different companies. This has doubled his company’s revenue to the order of nearly US$23 billion.

Global HQ: Redwood Shores, California, US
Website: www.oracle.com
Global leader: Larry Ellison, CEO
Local leader: Peter Idoine, managing director, NZ
Core activity: Enterprise software, databases and solutions
Revenue: US$22.4 billion (FY08-09 ended May 31)
Key customers: University of Auckland, NZ Defence Force, Fonterra, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Qantas
Employees: 74,802

Over the past four years, Oracle chief Larry Ellison has spent US$30 billion and acquired 56 different companies. This has doubled his company’s revenue to the order of nearly US$23 billion.

Despite the bulging portfolio, the company is hoping to add one more sibling, in the shape of Sun Microsystems.
However, at the time of writing, this was still before the European Commission. Should the transaction be approved by the European Union’s regulatory arm, Oracle will have acquired the Java programming language,
helping consolidate its position as one of the largest software companies in the world.

The EU and some corporate clients are concerned that consolidation in the enterprise software industry is already forcing up prices.

Oracle is also renewing its efforts to advance into embedded, open-source software, updating its Berkeley DB 4.8 and Berkeley DB XML 2.5 products.

This is in a bid to entice developers to embed them in their Windows-based applications. Rachael Bolton