October 28, 2007

I'm sailing off into the sunset


Friends, I hope you're sitting down right now. I'm afraid I have some bad news. Recently there have been some complications with my lawyers and the public relations department, so I'm going to have to wrap things up here on this little blog. And in case you're wondering, yes, I know what you're thinking. I'm sorry it had to end this way, friends. But look on the bright side. Every time you make a phone call and purchase something with your credit cards, every time you make an appointment with your cosmetic surgeon and fire an employee at your corporation, chances are you'll be using an Oracle product. And every time you use an Oracle product, our paths will cross, if only briefly.

I'd like to thank you, dear readers, for all of the comments and email messages. And it would probably be a crime not to send shout-outs to the kind people at the San Jose Mercury News, MacSurfer, ZDNet, InfoWorld, and Oracle Apps Lab for all of the favorable press. And, of course, Zack Urlocker. I'll do my best to send free fake beta 12g databases out to everybody. Peace.

October 25, 2007

I just saved 7,532 houses


I think all of us have been touched by the fires burning outside Los Angeles and San Diego this week. In fact, I've lost a couple of my own properties down in Malibu. BTW, they're the same properties I wanted to tear down and rebuild, so it's no biggie. But listen. Just thinking about your entire home going up in smoke is enough to motivate anybody to help people in harm's way. I know if my Japanese gardens were on fire -- if all the azaleas and bamboo and Japanese maples and bonsai marijuana plants were going up in smoke -- I'd want somebody to come and help me. So I thought, what the heck? I told my aircraft guys to get in there and convert my C-130 into a tanker ASAP, and then I flew down to San Diego and doused some flames. I helped put out a fire or two, and then I went back and dropped a couple thousand Satanic Surfers CDs over Qualcomm Stadium.

I made a difference, which is more than most of you can say. I bet you lazy turds just sat in your leather armchairs and had the news about BEA Systems read to you by beautiful girls in bikinis while getting foot massages and facials. Am I right or am I right? Shame on you freaks.

October 23, 2007

Dear Shit for Brains...


I know you laughed at the iPhone and everything, but now 1995 is calling and it wants its phones back. As in, your phones, Stevie. All of those devices running Windows are out, bro. The people spoke yesterday. They want technology that actually works. They want phones that can actually make phone calls without crashing. People would rather use rotary phones that your Winphones. Yes, I know you're shocked.

CNET cheerleaders go apeshit for MySQL


This time they're citing a survey by the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and claiming that our users "go ga-ga for open source, including MySQL." Which I guess stands to reason if you only read the first two paragraphs of the survey and then ignore everything else. Like the part where people say that they would never use MySQL for anything other than testing because it's insecure, unsupported, and "typically not used for mission-critical applications."

Tell you what, CNET. Why don't you start using MySQL on your production webservers and stop repeating verbatim what you hear from MySQL's Vice President of Products? Then maybe you'll sound less like an infomercial and more like an actual news source. Maybe.

October 22, 2007

Carl Icahn, pull my finger


When I was heli-skiing in Jackson Hole last week, I realized that the only thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly bear and her cubs is getting between Carl Icahn and a dollar bill. Seriously. Because here's the thing. A couple months ago we were thinking, holy cow, Carl fucking Icahn is buying up BEA Systems and the dude is ready to sell. Like, now. So I told Charles to throw an offer together and mail it in to BEA ASAP so we could pop the champaign, fire up the mechanical bull, and start rocking my boats. But then Carl said, well, uh, actually no, the offer isn't high enough, and could we please come back with a better offer? As if he really knows how these things work. And as if he's had a lot of luck with the businesses he's invested in recently. Like, um, Motorola and Time Warner. Ouch, Carl.

Anyway, I'm really happy articles like this one about Carl have started appearing around the blogosphere. This butthead needs to be called out and revealed for what he actually is: A little old man trying to play a game of monopoly with real businesses. And to be completely honest with you, that kind of board-game mentality might work in places like New York. Hell if I know. What I can tell you is nobody fucks with Larry Ellison and gets away with it. So, yeah. This isn't over, Icahn.

I have returned from the wilderness


Friends, I'm sorry about the lack of updates last week. I mean, I know this is a professional blog. And I also know a lot of stuff has gone down at Oracle over the last seven days. But let me tell you, last week was a totally crazy week for me personally. Man oh man. First there was the Oakland aerobatics show on Monday. Now, I'm not sure how many of you have flown a little prop plane 10 feet above the ground while stoned and drunk, but it really puts life and all of its challenges into perspective for you. There's nothing quite like playing chicken with telephone poles in a plane flying over four hundred miles per hour. And then on Tuesday, Steve came over to my house and we trimmed bonsai marijuana plants together and smoked a couple of joints and listened to Neil Young. Then I spent the rest of the week on my boat staring at the ocean and doing some soul searching. And you know what? I finally decided that I should have spent the week working at Oracle. Because honestly, I knew all along that it was just one of those weeks where I should have stayed home and taken care of little things, like firing John Wookey and closing the BEA Systems deal. Ah, well. As my hero Winston Churchill once said: never apologize, never explain.

October 15, 2007

We're a little disappointed about Doris Lessing


My wife Melanie really thought she was going to win the Nobel Prize in Literature this year. Don't ask me why. I mean, all of her books have been out of print for years now. And even when they were still in print, the only people who read them were desperate stay-at-home-moms and gay men and horny teenage girls who kept vibrators under their mattresses. But she still thought she was going to win. I warned her. I told her she was cruising for a bruising. Before we got married I said, Melanie, only 11 women have won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 106 years. And she said that she knew that and she wasn't going to get her hopes up or anything. But did she listen to me? No, she did not. She started crying her eyes out last Friday when I was supposed to be closing the deal with BEA Systems. It sort of frigged everything up. Anyway, that's what I was this weekend -- a shoulder to cry on. You're jealous, I know.

October 12, 2007

Friends, forgive me

You woke up this morning and saw the news about our bid for BEA Systems and you thought, what the fuck? Larry lied to us a couple weeks ago when he said he didn't care about those Beaturds. He tricked us, didn't he? Well, yes. And friends, I know what you're thinking right now. Listen, I'm sorry about misleading you. Just believe me when I say that I really want to tell you what we're doing with BEA Systems. But all I can say right now is that I can't say much. It's just one of those things. So have a good weekend and try not to toilet paper my house or egg my Karmann Ghia, okay?

October 11, 2007

As if three Google jets weren't enough...


Larry and Sergey and Eric just had to get another one. See here. I called Eric this afternoon to verify. He said, yes, the rumors are true. Apparently Larry wanted all three of them to have their own planes so they could each fly one and have dogfights over LA, and he wanted this new 757 so he could fly it from home with a special version of Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The best part about the 757 is that it runs on a special hybrid blend of dollar bills and ethanol. Larry's convinced that inflation is going to get so high in a couple months that the dollar won't be worth anything, so he wants to burn green backs to reduce the number of bills in circulation which will in turn help decrease inflation. Eric also said that passengers can actually fuel the aircraft while it's flying by sticking bills into the little plastic box right next to the stripper pole.

In the face of adversity, Red Hat tries to act natural


It's no secret that Shit for Brains thinks he owns Linux, or at least part of it. And it's also no secret that Red Hat thinks SFB is full of shit. But every couple months Stevie B. hints at an intellectual property lawsuit just to keep everybody on their toes. This time around, however, Red Hat says it isn't going to push back. They say they're just going to smile and nod and act like everything is normal. My lawyers are following the whole thing very closely. They say that Novell caving in was a good sign and that soon enough we'll be able to sue Microsoft for violating our patents. No joke. And we're talking large sums of money here, people. When you consider the fact that every computer running Windows has a little relational database inside, you'll see the scale of what I'm talking about. So we're almost ready to start entering into license negotiations with Microsoft. We think they should pay us about $10,000 per Windows installation. That's fair, right?

Jimbo's coming to town


Actually he's already been here for a while. But now he's moving the whole Wikimedia enchilada out here to the Valley. See here. I guess this means Wikipedia is out of the woods now, eh? Because last time I checked Jimbo was thinking about selling ads on encyclopedia pages. I think the real problem is that the dude can't get away from Wikipedia. He wants to be the next Bill Gates or whatever, but he just can't shake this rinky-dink non-profit he started. I hear that people always come up to the guy and call him the Wikipedia man. That and his rag-tag band of college student contributers always want him to speak at their schools. He must just hate that. And who can blame him? When you want to live on a sailboat with beautiful women hanging off each arm, you need money. Serious money. Money you're not going to be able to make with a non-profit organization. So I'm thinking about calling the guy. Maybe I'll invite him golfing and sailing and then offer him a job at Oracle. Either way, I'd like another friend. The guy's obviously smart, even if he does insist on using MySQL.

October 10, 2007

ZDNet's Michael Krigsman calls me out

Dude left a comment on one of my posts earlier today. Not sure, but I think he wanted to gently remind me of "Oracle's little payroll problem over at Arizona State University." Only it wasn't our problem, Mike. It was ASU's. Seriously. Because here's the thing. Sure we sell people software and support, but we aren't going to walk customers through every single itty-bitty little step. If they go and drop all of their tables by accident, that's not our fault. It's called operator error, Mike. Read our EULA. It doesn't cover mistakes made by blonde bimbos working as ASU interns who have freak-out moments whenever they break one of their nails. So you aren't going to get us on this one, bro. Nuh uh. Not going to happen. Talk to the hand, girlfriend.

This would make a great April Fools' Day joke

See here. Tom Yager over at InfoWorld says that we should all use Solaris when we can't use Mac OS X. He says that Solaris has all of the bloat of Windows Vista and none of the headaches associated with ease of use, and that's what makes it a great choice for people who aren't quite Mac people but don't want to be assimilated by Microsoft. Here's the best quote: "Solaris and OS X are both Unix, and if that's not enough, know that PowerBook, MacBook, and MacBook Pro are practically de facto choices among Sun's engineers." So if you're not sold on Solaris, the fact that Sun's engineers use it will seal the deal for sure.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. It doesn't make any sense to me either. And honestly, I'm kind of wondering whether Steve paid to have the article planted. He loves to fuck with the enterprise people.

Who needs an education anyway?


So by now you've probably read all about how SAP's shitty software basically shut down the entire Los Angeles school district. If not, see here. Apparently the administrators aren't yet sure whether the problem started with the MySQL database or the SAP installation. Anyway, now there's anarchy on the streets. Seriously. Kids are out of the classrooms and in the skate parks. They're listening to live punk bands instead of those dreary teachers. And thousands of these kids are talking to our Oracle recruiters. That's right people. As I write this, our dedicated employees are hitting the streets to find the little turd-droppers. We're calling it the A.S.S. (Application Support Services) initiative. Goes like this. We go out and find young tech-savvy individuals who want to make a difference. If they know about Linux, we give them our A.S.S. kit. It's a box full of things like condoms, Playboy magazines, O'Reilly programming books, a couple of marijuana joints to help them concentrate on the O'Reilly programming books, and a bunch of other information about open source projects. Because here's the thing. Those kids don't want to go to school their entire lives. They want to change the world and help people and do something meaningful. And what better way to change the world than to work on an open source project like Tomcat? Or maybe Fedora. Anything we can use and/or support.

October 9, 2007

I love Linus


But sometimes the dude can be as stubborn as a pack mule walking through Siberia in the dead of winter. Kind of like last week when he said, "You security people are insane," and then reiterated that he will add Smack to the Linux kernel. And that's cool. I mean, Linux is his dog and pony show. The problem is that Smack will probably bring a bunch of security vulnerabilities along with it.

People, this is exactly why I run OpenBSD on all of my servers at home. Those suckers are locked down. I keep them off the network, and I also have all the totally crazy shit to protect them. Fingerprint identification. Retinal scanners. Man traps. I'm telling you: The NSA has nothing on Larry's servers. Some people wonder why I go to the insane lengths I've gone to. Well, I'll tell you why. The truth is that you can never be too careful with your digital black book. Women's phone numbers are very, very important.

What's that sound coming from Facebook?


BusinessWeek thinks it's the cha-ching sound coming from the cash register as developers sell their Facebook applications and head for the door. But in reality it's just the sound of thousands of ambitious geeks trying to suck from Mark Zuckerberg's teat. Seriously. Sex-deprived brainiacs beware. This Facebook App stuff has pyramid scheme written all over it. Better to become an Oracle DBA and do serious work that can change the world and make you a bundle of money.

But let me tell you about this one app called Make a Baby. I really think it has potential. Check it out. You hop on Facebook and look at people's pictures until you get a hard-on or the female equivalent. Then you hook up and make a little virtual baby that looks like the two of you. Easy, right? The best part is that you don't even need to virtually procreate with a member of the opposite sex. Man oh man. Just think of the possible combos here. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Steve Ballmer and Jonathan Schwartz. (Sorry. Bad image. Talk about some fugly offspring.) Peter Burrows and Dan Lyons. Marten Mickos and Zack Urlocker. Or maybe even Jason Maynard and Rick Sherlund. Yes. Friends, I can see the positive energy flowing as I write this. More on these couples as they develop.

October 8, 2007

Henning Kagermann has his ass handed to him


Today's articles were so negative that it really pained me to read them. And that's saying a lot coming from me. This article from MarketWatch says that SAP just destroyed its relationship with Microsoft. And this article from Forbes says that we're smiling over here at Oracle. Believe me, we are smiling. But put yourself in Kagermann's shoes for a minute. You're sitting there watching Oracle buy all of these companies and get further and further ahead. We're literally leapfrogging over your pathetic products. You look at SAP's numbers and then you look at Oracle's numbers and then you get all panicked and shit. Beads of sweat pop out on your forehead. You know you have to do something. But what? Your old tricks don't work anymore. The engineers are working as fast as they can and your R&D department is light years behind the competition. So you think, okay, if you can't beat them you'll join them. You'll take Oracle's consolidation strategy and apply it to SAP.

And that's the heart of the problem. Our consolidation strategy isn't going to work for SAP. They're just not that kind of company. And anyway, they're too late. They purchased a company that was being shopped around and they overpaid by a couple billion. Now Microsoft is going to turn against them. And guess who's going to benefit from that? We will, of course, but also MySQL and to a lesser extent Red Hat. After us, MySQL AB probably has the most to gain, because SAP will probably develop closer ties with them after they fall out of grace with Microsoft. Changes are coming, bros.

BusinessWeek : Screech can learn a lot from MySpace

See here. For those too lazy to read, the article says that Facebook isn't doing all it can do to keep kids safe from sexual predators. The article cites a bunch of reputable off-duty police officers hanging out in strip clubs. Don't ask me where BusinessWeek finds these people, okay? I have no friggin idea. But anyway, according to the police officers, MySpace has some Perl script that flags profiles with words like "kill," "rape," "shoot," "gang," "Mark Zuckerberg," and "facebook." They take all the profiles that contain those words and they delete them. Facebook doesn't do that, so it's not as safe.

I know the article sounds stupid, but it's really not. And next month BusinessWeek is going to run another article about how Facebook needs to adopt MySpace's 1995-style colors and website design. The new article will also talk about how Facebook needs to let companies pose as people, let spammers create bogus profiles, and put advertisements for strip clubs at the top of every page. Then, according to the article, Facebook will be worth over $200 billion.

CmdrTaco celebrates ten years of bashing Oracle


See here. We're actually sending CmdrTaco aka Rob Malda a big ass fruitcake to help him celebrate Slashdot's tenth birthday. Why not? Taco's given us one helluva ride. All of those "Oracle Sucks Ass" articles were priceless. Too bad it's all coming to an end. Now all I have to do is send out an email message to Oracle's 70,000 employees and ask them to digg this or that. And then, boom! It's up on Digg and we get like 45,000 unique visitors within two hours. Of course, as Taco himself points out in one of those well-duh moments, "Digg is not Slashdot." Of course it's not, Rob. Slashdot is you, dude. That's why it blows goats. And that's also why your Wired interview has that big "Reddit!" button at the bottom of the page and that link to "Digg Just Might Bury Slashdot." Time for a reality check, CmdrTurd. You're not going to float for much longer.

SAP thinks it's ready to rumble


Woo boy. Euro-hippie Henning Kagermann is really strutting his stuff today after writing a $6.8 billion check for Business Objects. See here. I didn't think the dude had it in him, honestly. I didn't think Kagermann could actually spend that much money. I also didn't think he was stupid enough to fall for our jack-the-price-up strategy. But he was, and he did. It all worked beautifully. Safra was actually thinking about pushing the price up into the $8 billion dollar ballpark, but I said, no way, let's not push our luck on this one. Because here's the thing. If we made the price for Business Objects too high, we could have ultimately pushed SAP into bankruptcy, and we can't have that. We don't want to completely screw our competition. We need to keep some of our weakest competitors around so the feds think we're competing with somebody. It's the illusion of competition. That's it. I mean, you don't think SAP is actually going to be able to make this Business Objects thing work, do you? Ha! Henning Kagermann, bastard of bloat, we salute you.

October 7, 2007

What sort of twisted fuck does something like this?


Much love to dear reader John who sent in this snapshot of my defaced Wikipedia page (above). Look, people. I know some of you dislike my products. Maybe your Oracle database isn't working correctly. Maybe you don't understand our tech support personnel in Hong Kong or Nairobi or wherever. But that's not my fault. Oracle makes the best databases in the world and all of our tech support personnel take a rigorous course in speaking English. And anyway, nothing gives you a license to call me a Jew right in the subtitle of my Wikipedia page. It's antisemitism. It's hatred. So knock it off, will you? If you want to pick on somebody you should log onto Facebook and virtually knee your friends in the nuts.

October 5, 2007

"You're not going to believe this, but we're giving away servers now too."


Peter "you don't always have to be right" Burrows over at Business Week has hit another grand slam with his newest article about Jonathan Schwartz and Sun Microsystems. The best quote actually comes at the end of the article when Jim Zemlin at the Linux Foundation talks about Sun's recent moves: "It's like back in high school, when I'd throw these big parties and I'd think I was so cool, only no one would come." Which actually says a lot about both Jonathan and Jim when you think about it. Anyway, my question for Schwartz is this: How the fuck are you supposed to make money when you just give everything away? Peter Burrows seems to think that we're living in some new kind of economy where you don't really have to sell anything to make any money. In other words, if you keep throwing free software to the crowd and jumping and dancing around shiny servers long enough, good things are bound to happen. Um, yeah.

Pete, I want you to do something for me, bro. Just humor me, okay? Surf on over to Google and search for "google servers." Then take a good look at those pictures. See how Google is duck-taping hard drives onto motherboards? See how they're using velcro to strap the motherboards to the racks? Those are Google's servers, dude. Those are what power the world's biggest search engine. Google does that to save money and make components hot-swappable. I'm not sure, but it might have something to do with their stock price these days. So, yeah. Not sure where that leaves Sun, especially when you consider that hundreds of companies are now building servers Google-style.

Shit for Brains is splashing into SaaS


See here. Yes, I know this is old news. What makes it interesting now is that Microsoft is competing with a growing number of companies in this market, including SAP, Salesforce, and NetSuite. Don't laugh at the Microturds yet, though. When the tough get going, the going gets tough. I know SFB is just another butthead fighting over the SaaS table scraps, but Silverlight is actually pretty good. It's nothing to sneeze at anyway.

And I'll tell you this. The only thing worse than Google-envy is Salesforce.com-envy. Don't worry: Stevie B. will want Salesforce.com. When he starts making his little mating call and doing that thing with his tongue, we'll start dropping the hints that we're looking into buying Salesforce. It's our jack-the-price up strategy. We don't really want Salesforce, but we do want to fuck Microsoft. So we'll pretend to want them and plant a bunch of articles in the press and drop some outrageous figure like $10 billion. Then SFB will get all huffy and try to outbid us. It works every time. Just like it did with Red Hat and JBoss. And just like JBoss, Salesforce.com would drag Microsoft down. It would be a terrible buy for Microsoft. But that's Shit for Brains for you. I swear the dude's exactly like the teenage girls I see shopping at the mall. He's always buying a bunch of shit he doesn't really want or need.

October 4, 2007

Revenge of the Nerds coming to Xbox


Doesn't it seem like Microsoft takes a hit every time Red Hat releases their numbers? It sure seems that way to me. Red Hat announces record profits and Microsoft's stock goes down. Red Hat announces that they've gained market share and Microsoft fires a couple of their vice presidents. Don't ask me why it's like that. When you really look at the numbers you realize Microsoft has nothing to fear. But they're still afraid. It's like the elephant jumping out of its skin every time it sees the mouse. This last time Microsoft tried something new. Shit for Brains said, well, look. If we release Halo 3 on the same week Red Hat announces quarterly earnings, we'll probably be okay. And they were. In fact, Halo 3 actually did much better than they thought it would. Which is kind of surprising when you consider that the game sucks ass.

So the new plan is to release an Xbox game every time Red Hat announces quarterly earnings. That way, according to Shit for Brains, Microsoft can weather the storm. So SFB has directed Bungie to start working on a new game. This one is going to be a lot like the Revenge of the Nerds movie, except it's going to star younger Silicon Valley greats. Gates and Jobs are in there, of course. So am I. Larry made it in, people. Microsoft sent a couple developers down here to look at pictures of me when I was younger (above and to right) so they could get me just right. The evil frat boys are going to be the gentlemen from the SEC.

And you probably won't believe this, but Shit for Brains actually has hair in the game. I tripped out the first time I saw his character. I didn't even recognize the dude. Seriously. But here's the best part. I bribed the Microsoft guys to put in this cheat code that makes Shit for Brains go postal. Once they put it in the game, all you'll have to do is just punch in the code and Stevie B. will start throwing chairs and shit. Priceless.

These Alinghi guys are toast


I think Swiss drug lord Ernesto Bertarelli has finally figured out that he picked on the wrong dude. He’s used to fucking with poor people who sail toy boats in places like Dubai and Kennebunkport. He’s won so many times over the years that it probably never occurred to him that he shouldn’t challenge a guy like Larry Ellison. He thought I was just going to roll over when he proposed new rules that would completely destroy the America’s Cup. Um, yeah. Fat chance, crack head. We're going to shut you down. You can cry and kick and scream and shoot up all you want, but it's not going to make any difference. We've already won. You know how I know? Because articles like this one keep appearing and they're making you look real bad. Check out this one quote: "Making American billionaire Larry Ellison 'look like the good guy is hard to do,' yet Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli has accomplished that, said Gary Jobson." You can say that again, Gary. Listen, Ernie. If you raise the white flag and give up now I'll let you sail in the America's Cup in 2009. Seriously. This isn't a joke, dude. Because everybody knows that I don't just win. I make everybody else lose. It's a little philosophy of mine. Just saying. You can do you whatever you want, Ernie. Okay? I just wanted you to know before we go to court.

October 3, 2007

Much love, Mercury News talking heads


Remember a couple weeks ago when Jack Davis at the Mercury News said I couldn't figure out what makes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer tick? Well, today Chris O'Brien partially redeemed his partner in crime by linking to my blog and actually acknowledging that I wouldn't provide any comment on the crisis over at BEA Systems. The thing is, if he'd really taken the time to read my blog, he would have seen that I don't care about BEA Systems anymore. But that's a journalist for you. Chris may be a technology guy, but he's still a reporter at heart and he's steeped in journalist ethics and standards. Which basically just means that he's a closet Walter Lippmann reader who believes what he wants. But thanks for getting the story straight this time, Chris. Call me, girlfriend. We can talk about reinstating my subscriptions.

I have no idea how this happened

Check out this Oracle employee’s blog where he says that the people in his three-member team have the following titles: "Product Strategy Director," "Director, Applications Strategy," and "Senior Director, Product Strategy." At first I thought this was some kind of a joke. I really couldn’t believe it. Even Safra thought I was getting punked by some Salesforce.com employee. Because nobody working for Oracle could have titles like these -- especially not people working in the same team. I mean, come on. It sounds more like a Red Hat problem, right? They’re the ones with the organizational issues, not us. But then I checked in the database. Turns out this guy is right. There really are three people working in a three-member team with those titles.

So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do here. Right after I post this blog entry, I’m going to call Safra and tell her to assemble an independent committee to decide what to do next. Now I don’t know exactly what the committee will do, but chances are pretty good that they’ll want to hire an outside auditing firm to take care of the dirty work. The auditing firm will come in here and think, gee, we don’t want to touch this mess. So then they’ll probably subcontract with some other company. Those people will come in here and take a look around and tell us that it was a PeopleSoft mistake and it was like that before we purchased PeopleSoft. Which is actually what I believed all along, but we have to verify it. We need accountability, people. The individual who did this needs to be held responsible for his or her actions. We’ll find the person, don’t worry.

Just got back from Google this morning


The Google turds are hanging in there and going about their usual business despite all of the recent flak over this DoubleClick deal. I've got to tell you though, Eric and the founders are up in arms over articles like this one. They just don't understand why people are so hostile and resentful now. They know everybody use to love Google and its pretty campus complex and its wonderful employees and its food and its logo and its search engine. But now the tide has turned, and they're mad about that. But the thing Eric and the founders are most upset about is the Google blogs. They just aren't working. They aren't swaying public opinion like they used to. The Google blogosphere hasn't been the same since it called Michael Moore a big fat liar.

So they have a new strategy. They're going to fire up the Google jet and tour the world giving "Google Truthout Sessions." Dr. Eric will be talking all about how Google really is a good corporation. He'll also be handing out lots and lots of Google paraphernalia and giving kids free rides on the Google jet. And the Truthout Sessions will be sponsored by advertisers, of course. That's why I went to see the guys in the first place. Oracle is sponsoring the first ten sessions, and it will probably sponsor ten more depending on the attendance. We'll see how it turns out.

Report: Red Hat to gain more market share than OS/2 Warp

Let's hear it for these Red Hat guys. They think they're going to capture half of the server market by 2015. See here. They won't make it, of course, but I do appreciate the effort. And I'll tell you that this is really great news for us here at Oracle, because we're all about Linux. Seriously. Why do you think we released 11g for Linux first? We hate the Microturds even more than we hate the turds working on JBoss.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret here: Linus Torvalds is my homie. I take the dude and his little toy penguin up in the MiG sometimes. We buzz the Microsoft campus and talk about that movie called March of the Penguins and how he really wanted to be an extra but didn't get the part. And believe me when I say that Linus hates MySQL more than I do. He really does. And we're both mixed on Red Hat. He's leaning towards Ubuntu now and I'm about to jump ship for FreeBSD. But we're friends. Partners in arms, as we say on my boat.

October 2, 2007

Caption contest


Okay, so first I've got to tell you that my lawyers actually advised me against holding this contest. They said something about how traffic to my blog isn't high enough yet and people never leave comments or whatever. But you know how I listen to my lawyers. And anyway, I have faith in you people. I know you're going to come through for Larry and actually leave some captions in the comments. Believe me, you're going to have a field day with this one.

So here we have Bill Gates and J Allard at the Zune 2 launch ceremony today. In the Times article Gates said, "We are very pleased with the satisfaction we got. The satisfaction for the device was superhigh." Um, yeah. Not too sure about that, but I do have to admit that I'm a little disappointed they discontinued the brown Zune. Guess the "Like a Turd" jokes have to stop now, eh? Anyway, have at it, bros. Free fake Oracle 12g Database Alpha edition goes to the winners.

So Steve calls...


And he says he wants a raise. He says, you know what, Larry? I put this little podunk company on the map and what do I get? Fucking $1 a year, dude. That's how Apple's board of directors thanks me. That's how the stock holders thank me. And yes, I know I'm technically the CEO who received the most compensation in 2007, but it's not enough. It's still not enough, Larry. You know that, right? You're with me on this one. I know you are. I mean, I'm only like what, the 37th richest person in the world or something? Fuck that shit, dude. I want to be up there with you. I want to buy a little place in Woodside next to your house and have a buddhist temple in my backyard made out of gold where I can go and meditate and think about the next great thing. I'm thinking it will be the Newton reincarnated but I'm not sure yet. I'm really not. I've got to think about it more. So what do you think, man? How should I approach these guys and ask for a raise?

Crazy Steve. I just hope this iPhone bricking business blows over soon.

I hate to say it, but this is what happens when you put women in charge


It's true. Women were just never meant to be CEOs. All they do is frig things up and run companies into the ground. Just like Meg Whitman over at good old eBay. Her Skype deal went belly up and now she's looking for somebody to blame. Watch out, gents. The woman named best-dressed dyke for seven consecutive years and the two time Frumpy Woman award-winner is on the warpath. She's out for blood. Next step: Put Skype up on the eBay auction block. She wants to get rid of that thing while she still can, and who can blame her? The captains set sail on a ship named Joost a long time ago. But who would buy Skype? Microsoft? Facebook? Sun? Okay, maybe not Sun. But Facebook would probably be interested in turning it into a Facebook application or something.

UPDATE: Safra just emailed me. I'll post her message here for posterity. "Larry, you sexist chauvinistic pig. I hate your fucking guts. This is it. I mean it. I'm quiting Oracle right after the rest of my options vest next year. Take that, asshole."

“Salesforce is like the rent-to-own couch you had back in college, only anybody can sleep on it and you never actually own it.”


Sometimes I feel kind of sorry for Marc "the Abbie Hoffman of software" Benioff. The dude has a long twisted road ahead of him with this SaaS and Force.com stuff. Because here’s the thing. He isn’t just selling Salesforce.com products -- he’s selling an entire paradigm shift. He’s hitting the pavement and saying, "Look, you turds. We know you’re used to installing and using Microsoft Office from your PC. We also know you’re used to using stuff like Google Apps, Basecamp, and even Google Gears for free. But now you need to get used to using applications online and you need to get used to paying us for them." It’s a ridiculous concept. It really is. How would you like it if somebody said you were going to have to rent your shoes from now on? Or you were going to have to rent your wrist watch? It doesn’t make sense does it? The same is true with Salesforce products. And Force.com is even worse. I mean, be honest here. Are you really going to pay for a development platform when you can get literally dozens of superior development platforms for free? This isn’t the same as when Oracle was selling the relational database back in the '80s. This isn't a new product -- it’s a bundle of stuff that has been repackaged, rebranded, and offered in a new way. Same shit, people. So yes, I do feel a little sorry for Marc. But then I walk down to Oracle’s basement and see all those vaults full of gold and I remember that we won for a reason. The bottom line is that we’ve got better stuff and we know how to sell it. So take that, Marc. You little turd.

October 1, 2007

You know what we're doing with SAP and Salesforce, right?


Of course you do. So does Phil over at ZDNet. We're just going to kick back, pop the champagne, and watch these two butt heads for a while. They're going to fight over the scraps in the SaaS market while we land the big deals and sell the real thing. Because that's how this works, people. The software industry isn't going to operate like the fucking movie rental business. I don't care what Marc Benioff says. Software is just one of those things that people want to own. They want to have a physical copy of the application on their hard drive. They want to be able to back it up and start it by double clicking an icon. Don't ask me why they want it that way, but they do.

Sure, there's a fringe market for this type of stuff. Some people want to be on the cutting edge, and some admins are just plain lazy. Those are the people who go to SaaS. They're like the people who use Rhapsody instead of iTunes. They're convinced that Apple is stupid and evil, just like SAP and Salesforce customers are convinced that Oracle is stupid and evil. It's like 5% of the market. So go ahead, boys. Have at it. Be competitive. Drive each other into bankruptcy. If and when things get good in SaaS, NetSuite will be there to finish both of you off.

Shit for Brains has lost his marbles


Check out this article where Stevie B. tries to diss me but just winds up pulling an incoherent George W. Bush moment. Here’s what he told the Times Online: "I find it interesting and probably not that considered a decision to do what [Oracle have] done." Right. You know, as frigged up as this is, I think I get the gist of the article. SFB is upset that I get paid as much as I do and he thinks Oracle is making a mistake. But the article is probably a plea for help more than anything. Steve has gone nuts working out this Facebook deal and he knows he needs professional help and medication. He’s trying to seek help through the press. It’s like a secret message he’s sending to the medical community.

Listen, Steve. I just called some professionals up in Redmond and they concur. They can hear you, bro. Help is on the way. Just hold tight and they’ll be at your office soon.

Inside Oracle Chicago

Frank and I are finally back in Woodside after our week in Chicago. It was a totally awesome trip. Seriously. But I'll be honest with you: the best part was hitting the Oracle office on the 45th floor of the Sears tower. Those guys really have their shit together. Especially Nick Jensen, a young man who works in sales. Nick is straight out of college with an MBA, a 4.7 GPA, and a strong fraternity background. The guy isn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but he’s not all that stupid either. He knows that most of the people who buy Oracle products are complete nerds who have no social life. They’re the geeks and the outcasts who have been shunned and picked on all their whole lives. They’re the fat kids and the loners and the people who pick their noses in public. They don’t have girlfriends. In fact, most of them don’t have any friends at all. They need to be made to feel special.

That’s what Nick does -- he makes them feel special. Being the go-getter he is, he sets up a bunch of fun games and contests and stuff for our potential customers. These guys fly in from all over the US and have the time of their lives. Seriously. I was there. I saw it. The first thing Nick does is the gallon challenge. Anybody who wants to take a stab at getting a free Oracle software package complete with our databases and apps is welcome to drink one gallon of milk within an hour and hold it down for that hour. If you toss your cookies, you lose the free package and you have to pay 10% more for every Oracle product you buy. The stats are pretty good on that one. In fact, I think only one guy has ever been able to drink it all and hold it down for the full hour. So that’s a pretty fun game. And then everybody plays "Pin the Genitalia on the Honky." It’s a freebie game and kind of a strange twist on pin the tail on the donkey. Just put on the blindfold, pin the pecker on the fat naked IT guy who looks a lot like Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and you’ll win big. That’s 5% off any one Oracle product. Yes, I know the game is strange and a little racist against Caucasians. But so far so good. There haven’t been any lawsuits or potential customers in tears. People just laugh their asses off and have a great time.

But the best game is saved for last. Goes like this. Nick sits everybody down in front of Linux boxes with full MySQL databases and tells them to delete exactly half the entries from every table. And then he tells them to do it again and again and again until every entry is gone. But they can’t do it. It’s impossible with MySQL. You just can’t delete every entry from the table when you can only delete half the entries.

Anyway, then Nick takes everybody out to a Cubs game and gets them nice and drunk and then they go out and party and get even more drunk and then they sign their contracts. Just kidding. They don’t really sign their contracts while they’re drunk. They sign in the morning before they leave at 6 AM. Trust me, most of them aren’t hung over. They really aren’t. And the important thing to remember here is that everybody has fun and everybody wins. We get money, they get great quality Oracle products, and Nick gets a sweet commission. And my hat’s off to Nick. Keep up the good work, bro.

Kevin Rose: Digg now worth at least $1 billion


This website valuation stuff is getting out of hand. Now TechTV darling Kevin Rose says his script kiddie website called Digg is worth a cool $1 billion. According to Rose, Screech says Facebook is worth $10-$15 billion so Digg must be worth at least $1 billion. Never mind the fact that half of Digg's "registered users" submit one or two articles and then never come back. And never mind the fact that the other half of the registered users -- the ones who actually do use Digg -- are males under the age of 9 who have no purchasing power whatsoever. Their balls haven't dropped and they digg anything with the words "pwn" or "digg" or "Kevin Rose" in the title. But the fact that they digg stuff like that is a good thing according to Kevin. The web is growing up and tastes are changing and people are evolving. Don't you know? It's a new media thing. That is, until CBS or Rupert buys Digg. Then it will be an old media thing.

UPDATE: Kevin just called and thanked me for the plug. He said he's going to digg my blog in the hopes that somebody with a fat wallet will see this entry and give him a ring. He also wanted me to say that he'll throw in Revision3 and Pownce for another $3 billion. Um, yeah.

MySQL AB to hold nerd auction


Inspired by the recent nerd auction held by the Linux Users Group at Washington State University, MySQL AB’s Marten Mickos has decided to hold an auction of his own. Zack Urlocker, Executive VP of Products, says that the auction will raise much-needed money for the open source company and boost programmer productivity. "Nerds need love, too," said a visibly emotional Urlocker. "When we saw the news about the guys at that LUG, we knew they had struck nerd payola. But we believe we’re better than those doofuses. They need haircuts and TLC. We already have haircuts. And we really think the girls are going to go gaga for our geeks. The girls can run queries on us. We now know how to replicate. And we can perform the all-powerful mysqldump." Urlocker said that MySQL AB has started circulating a photo (right) of MySQL employees with their shirts off and will be calling the auction MyNERD. Due to the complexity of the auction, next month’s event will be conducted on eBay with Oracle 11g databases.