CBNC is Reporting that Larry Ellison, co-founder and longtime CEO of Oracle, will be stepping down, effective immediately. He will be replaced by Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, Oracle said. In an unusual move, Hurd and Catz will both be named CEO of the company—not co-CEOs.
Its probably the biggest change for the appearance of change in modern corporate history. According to Oracle:
Ellison will become executive chairman and chief technology officer. Oracle said manufacturing, legal and finance functions would report to Catz and sales, service and business units would report to Hurd. Software and hardware engineering will report to Ellison.
Ellison has drawn some public ire in recent years. In September 2013, reports surfaced that some shareholders were not pleased with the nearly $77 million compensation package that Oracle doled out to Ellison the previous fiscal year. This is different than the technical ire he has drawn for decades of acquisitions, predatory pricing and litigation.
Not going away, and probably not going to be silent, it seems uncertain this is as clean a cut as Bill Gates' exit of Microsoft.
See also the report at Forbes which notes "Oracle stock turned red following the after hours announcement, shares were down about 2.5% to $40.50. Prior to the announcement Oracle shares were up 8.6% year-to-date."
What say Soylentils? Will this help Oracle in the public eye?
[Update: see additional reports at: phys.org, Ars Technica, ComputerWorld, IT World, and El Reg.]
[Update: Official Oracle announcement.]
Related Stories
Mark Hurd, Oracle CEO, has died
CNN reports Mark Hurd, Oracle CEO, has died:
Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle and former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, two of Silicon Valley's most storied companies, has died. He was 62.
Oracle Founder and Chairman Larry Ellison confirmed Hurd's death Friday.
"Mark was my close and irreplaceable friend, and trusted colleague," Ellison said in a memo to Oracle employees that was posted on Mark Hurd's personal website. "Oracle has lost a brilliant and beloved leader who personally touched the lives of so many of us during his decade at Oracle. All of us will miss Mark's keen mind and rare ability to analyze, simplify and solve problems quickly."
Hurd took a leave of absence from ORCL) a month ago for unspecified medical reasons. At the time, he said in a message to employees: "I've decided that I need to spend time focused on my health." He had been a chief executive and board director at the company since 2014. He served alongside Safra Catz, who also has the title of CEO. Ellison took over Hurd's responsibilities when he left.
Former Oracle Co-CEO Mark Hurd Has Passed Away
Former Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd has passed away
Mark Hurd, who until last month was one of two CEOs leading the database software giant Oracle, has passed away at age 62, one month after telling employees in a letter that he was taking a leave of absence owing to health reasons.
Staffers, who were notified that Hurd died earlier this morning, have been offering their condolences on Twitter.
Hurd joined Oracle nine years ago, after spending five years with Hewlett-Packard, where he was CEO, president and, ultimately, board chairman, all roles from which he was pressured to resign in 2010 after submitting inaccurate expense reports that concealed his personal relationship with an outside consultant to the company.
Previously: Larry Ellison Steps Down (But Not Going Away)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:59PM
He'll never truly go away because the company is named after him:
One
Real
Asshole
Called
Larry
Ellison
(Score: 4, Funny) by strattitarius on Thursday September 18 2014, @08:59PM
Hurd and Catz will both be named CEO of the company—not co-CEOs
You would think a database company wouldn't do something as stupid as put two people in a position specifically designed and named to be held by a single person.
SELECT DISTINCT is going to do some weird shit in the next release of Oracle!
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:08PM
Well, in their defense, you have to admire their subtle recognition the impossibility of getting two co-equals to go in the same direction, sort of like Hurding Cats.
TaTA Boom Crash.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday September 19 2014, @02:27PM
You laugh, but who said Hurd had no future?
(Score: 3, Funny) by arslan on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:27PM
You're mistaken, this is Oracle RAC in action for High Availability... if one goes down, say maybe Larry decides to press the big red button that open up a flaming trapdoor underneath one of em in his secret lair in his Hawaiian island, there's another left.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:28PM
There has to be a herding cats joke in there somewhere.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:43PM
I've Hurd of Catz, have you heard of chickens?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by g33kgirl on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:09PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 19 2014, @01:30PM
Not to mention concealing witnesses ...
ObURL: http://web.archive.org/web/20040408124353/http://www.orafraud.org/Oracle/terminator.html#Missing Lisa [archive.org]
My manager, Burt Demchick, somehow ended up a VP at Oracle after the dust all settled.
So now you know the coin that is required to purchase such positions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:23PM
Around 1980, when business world still considered personal computers to a toy for hobbyists, a young entrepreneur on the West Coast caught wind of IBM's growing involvement in emerging technology. Being an engineer rather than an MBA type, the entrepreneur soon realized he understood the significance of the technology and IBM's involvement better than the IBM executives did themselves, and he proceeded to leverage that knowledge, and his own ability to organize and motivate an engineering team, into a business empire.
That entrpreneur's name was Larry Ellison.
Over the course of the '80s and '90s, many competitors rose and fell. Ellison avoided the mistakes that others made:
- he based his DBMS on relational technology, unlike IDMS and others that are now forgotten
- he went "all-in" with SQL as the user interface, unlike Ingres
- Ellison realized the significance of having software that ran on many different platforms. Therefore, he had a built-in marketing edge over IBM and DEC, who favored their own platforms
- he avoided cutting an unequal deal with Microsoft (Sybase)
- he avoided accounting scandals big enough to destroy a company (Informix)
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by doublerot13 on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:41PM
Bill Gates is influential in same way that Dick Cheney was influential.
Never of them deserve credit for what they have done. More like blame and consequences.
(Score: 2) by redneckmother on Friday September 19 2014, @02:08AM
Joke 'em if they can't take a... wait, what?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:47PM
Credit for not fucking up isn't much credit.
Never attribute to genius what can more easily be explained by chance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by g33kgirl on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:50PM
(Score: 2) by dublet on Friday September 19 2014, @11:06AM
Exclusive footage of Ellison enjoying his Hawaiian island [youtube.com].
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:52PM
Will the new guys make 5000x what the worker bees make (as Ellison did)?
Will they have to split that amount?
Will they make significantly less than Ellison paid himself?
Will Ellison draw a pension that is the same monthly compensation as before?
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:57PM
I have worked with Oracle and MySQL, but I have never worked with DB2 or Informix.
I know that some of you out there have.
Please, enlighten me about them. Tell me what you think of them. Tell me your experiences.
An inquiring mind wants to know!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 19 2014, @04:01PM
Vhy not Postgres? Blachhh! Woop! Woop! Woop! *click!* *click!*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @12:30PM
Because any old crow can install and use PostgreSQL. That's not the case for DB2 and Informix.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday September 19 2014, @01:20AM
A triumvirate [wikipedia.org], that's the management solution they chose in hell! :D
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday September 19 2014, @03:28PM
In an unusual move, Hurd and Catz will both be named CEO of the company—not co-CEOs.
I guess I'm not familiar with the legalese...I was under the impression "co-" was a pragmatic definition meaning "there's more than one of them at the same time."
Is the implication that they're both going to be committing changes at the same time and there's no 3-way merge system, or what?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"