Larry Ellison Speaks on Sun

 

The last speaker of the day is inevitably the one that everyone who is attending in person and online today the Oracle-Sun update that everyone is waiting to hear from.

Up until we have heard about how Oracle will support and integrate Sun technology into the Oracle stack.  We heard how support will adjust to the new support needs and how support will change for Sun customers who will now need to follow the Oracle support and pricing models. This will change things for some. We heard of how the the company will be fully integrated as a company as Oracle does with all acquisitions.

The Larry took to the stage set to a backdrop of his America’s Cup boat. Larry stated that Oracle’s vision is the same as IBM has in 1960 and at that time made IBM the most important company in the world. Oracle and Larry would like to be seen that same way in the future.

The goal will be the integrated products that Oracle will be able to deliver that will leverage the best of the hardware and the software to deliver more products like the Sun-Oracle Exedata server. You should expect to see many more examples of this going forward. They will continue to support the full spectrum of servers, but you should expect the best performance and reliability from the Oracle stack; or at  least that’s the idea.

Larry answered the concern about Sun employees and said that he was not planning to lay off half the staff. The reality is that Oracle plans to hire 2,000 new employees focused on Sun, while he expects only a 1,000 layoffs. This is quite a change from what was originally suspected.

Ellison also said that the Sun business will be profitable in February and they will be profitable in the first month which they own it. Larry stated that he expects that the first year profit of 1.5 billion as originally set. He also expect that the business WILL grow and that includes the Sun hardware.

The questions focused on how Oracle will owkr with other companies. Such as why would an SAP customer pick Oracle and Sun or why would they not. Larry stated that you should expect that Oracle and Sun will provide the highest performance and be reliable. He felt that customers will lead the charge to ensure that SAP and others continue to work on and do it well on other platforms but that they work best on Oracle and would ensure that things will continue as is.

On his journey to the top, Larry said that he is not at the top of the mountain yet, but the journey continues towards the top of the software mountain.