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How Not to Change Anything at Oracle

How Not to Change Anything at Oracle

Want to make tech headlines without having to change anything ? or in fact, do anything? If you?re Oracle, all you have to do (or not do, as the case may be) is shake up the top levels of management.

The news this week, as per the Oracle press release: the only CEO in Oracle?s history, Larry Ellison, is stepping down as CEO. Big news, right? After all, he?s 70 years old now, and he?s a fixture on the yachting circuit. Maybe it?s time for him to relax on his yacht and enjoy his billions in retirement while hand-picked successors Mark Hurd and Safra Catz take the reins as co-CEOs. (Apparently Ellison?s shoes are so big the only way to fill them is to put one new CEO in each.)

But look more closely and you?ll see that sipping Mai Tais on the Rising Sun isn?t Ellison?s plan at all. He?s planning to keep working full time as CTO and in his newly appointed role as Executive Chairman. The only difference here is the reporting structure: Hurd and Catz now report to the Board instead of directly to Ellison. ?Safra and Mark will now report to the Oracle Board rather than to me,? Ellison purrs. ?All the other reporting relationships will remain unchanged.?

Oh, and Ellison reports directly to the Board as well, as he has always done, rather than to either Hurd or Catz. And who does the Board report to? Ellison, of course, in his new role as Executive Chairman.

It?s important to note that Oracle never had an Executive Chairman before, only a Chairman (Jeff Henley, now demoted to Vice Chairman of the Board). So, what?s the difference between a Chairman and an Executive Chairman? According to Wikipedia, the Executive Chairman is ?An office separate from that of CEO, where the titleholder wields influence over company operations.?

In other words, Ellison is now even more in charge than he was before. In his role as CEO, he reported to the Board, led by a (non-executive) Chairman. But now, he gets to run the board, as well as the technology wing of Oracle.

So, will anything really change at Oracle? Unlikely ? at least not until Ellison finally kicks the bucket. It was always Ellison?s show, and now Ellison has further consolidated his iron grip on his baby. If you?re expecting change from Oracle ? say, increased innovation for example ? you?ll have to keep waiting.

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