Zach Nelson
Larry Ellison's two favorite companies: Oracle and its "competition"
May 16, 2011: 2:34 PM ETOracle and NetSuite go after customers with the same kinds of needs, but they've carved out their own turfs, and are about to get even cozier.
Image by Oracle_Photos_Screenshots via Flickr
FORTUNE -- Larry Ellison is cheering for Oracle and NetSuite. Not surprising, considering the billionaire tech mogul (and Oracle founder and CEO) is a major shareholder in both companies. But now Oracle (ORCL) and NetSuite (N) have more than Ellison's stake in common -- they're both going after big corporate customers.
Oracle is known for selling large-scale, on-premise hardware and software packages to businesses. But NetSuite has historically targeted small and medium companies with its more affordable cloud-based finance and accounting software, which is delivered on-demand and over the Internet. Last week at NetSuite's SuiteWorld conference in San Francisco, the smaller software company announced a new suite of applications, services and partnerships aimed at attracting larger enterprise customers.
So does this mean NetSuite will soon compete for Oracle's turf? More
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What's next for the post-Ozzie Microsoft? No one knows.
As a giant of technology departs, it's time to start asking, what's next for Steve Ballmer's Microsoft?
When Microsoft (MSFT) announced Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie would be moving on, some viewed it as another blow to a company with a bit of a vision problem. Ozzie was only the second person to be the company's CSA -- the first being founder Bill Gates, who took the role upon retiring as MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Oct 26, 2010 12:33 PM ETPosted in: Bill Gates, Microsoft, NetSuite, Office suite, Ray Ozzie, Software architect, Stephen Elop, Steve Ballmer, Zach Nelson
