IT Journal Entry: Larry Ellison, CEO/Founder, Oracle

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Larry Ellison co-founded Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle in 1977. He serves as a trustee of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. He also enjoys sailing.

Q:In your opinion, is there a major corporation today showing the kind of innovation that IBM had in its glory days?

Larry Ellison

Ellison:
No. One of the great disappointments in Microsoft is that they have all this money, and they’ve had this tremendous success selling Windows, selling Office … but just try to list the innovations from Microsoft. I’ll take IBM over Microsoft. Although I think Microsoft does some things brilliantly. The way they destroyed Netscape was illegal but brilliant. Microsoft’s policy has been the destruction of innovation. Netscape was the most innovative software company around, certainly during the 1990s. These were the people who really popularized the internet, through the outgrowth of the Mosaic browser. And Microsoft said the reward for innovation should be oblivion.

Link: ITMJ