Ellison talking trash again

Oracle's controversial CEO, Larry Ellison, is back in the news again, explaining how he could have owned Apple had he wanted to go through withit, and explaining why his company's latest database, Oracle 8i, willreplace Windows as an operating system. Ellison also provided someinformation about Microsoft's stranglehold on the computer industry.

Hold on tight.

Ellison says his attempt to buy Apple in 1997 would have happened had a lawyer not warned him about problems he'd have because of insider information.

"I was at [my lawyer's] offices and I wanted to buy [Apple] at $13 a sharebut my lawyer said I knew too much," Ellison says. "I decided it just wasn't that much to me to deal with Justice lawyers. I walked away from a deal to buy Apple Computer at $13 a share." Apple's stock is now in theupper 30's.

Ellison attributes Apple's current successes to Steve Jobs.

"I don't know how long he is going to stay, because I don't think Steve knows--but I don't see him leaving anytime soon," he said.

As for Oracle 8i replacing Windows, Ellison says that the product's mostinnovative feature, "WebDB," allows the database to run completely withinany Web browser. The "i" in "Oracle 8i" stands for "Internet" and Ellisonwanted to drive home the fact that the database is Internet-enabled. Howthis will unseat Windows is unclear to everyone but Ellison, I suppose. Theproduct still needs to run on some operating system.

The Gates comments came during Ellison's introduction to Oracle 8i, andEllison generally finds the time to slide conversation in that direction.Ellison recounted two incidents where Gates was able to stop hardware development projects at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC, now part ofCompaq) by threatening to halt development of Windows NT for Digital'sAlpha processor. One project involved a Network Computer (NC) for whichOracle would have provided the software. Digital was going to manufacture500,000 units.

"Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry--he decides who'sgoing to build a PC," Ellison said.

Ellison also described how Gates prevented Intel CEO Andy Grove frombacking a unified version of UNIX that would have run on Intel chips. Theplan for a unified UNIX was backed by IBM, Sun, AT&T and other companies,but fell apart because of infighting and, allegedly, because Intel droppedsupport for the plan due to pressure from Microsoft.

"I don't know if the government is going to breakup Microsoft's monopoly, but the Internet is going to breakup Microsoft's monopoly position," saidEllison