Zitat des Tages von Safra A. Catz:
Common sense will always prevail. America will advance the agenda for the greatest minds.
First of all, we have infrastructure as a service, which Amazon has; we have platform as a service, which Microsoft has; we have software as a service; we have applications. Nobody has everything except us. We also have data as a service.
The truth is that technology is only valuable if it helps you run your organization better.
Most of the largest software companies in the world today are based on Oracle, and they were once startups.
The worst decision, hands down, was wearing bright yellow when I was 9 months pregnant. I looked like a bumble bee. I have not worn yellow since.
Oracle is my second job ever that did not involve waitressing. But I still have my waitress apron just in case this does not work out. It's just that I fell in love with software when I was programming in college. When I was an investment banker, there were mostly mainframe companies and very few software ones.
Even in large corporations, smaller ideas may not get enough resources.
Oracle is obsessed with security. It's an absolute requirement for all our products. The real security issue is when customers take older products that were not built for the Internet, and kind of rack them and put them on the Internet.
I know firsthand the complexities of leading an enterprise through business and technology transformation. It takes intense focus, a strong drive, and a clearly communicated vision to inspire and take an organization from where they are, to where they need to be - or where they want to go.
The fact is that our business is fundamentally really strong. We have a platform and a depth that no one in the tech industry has. This means we have competitors at every layer.
I learn from Larry Ellison every day. I've said this before: how is it to work with someone who thinks out of the box? Larry doesn't see the walls at all; he does not see the box. He is an absolute, true visionary. And to be honest, I always find myself in a box! I'm comfy in my box. I've furnished it; it's lovely.
There are so many immigrant-led success stories in the United States, and the fact that it's gotten so much harder for educated folks to stay here is really unfortunate.
In the finance world, we used to spend all of our time looking backwards, reporting on what happened. Can I book it? What are the numbers? Now it's about looking into the future. It's about planning and integration. The role of finance is now that of a partner in the business.
I literally went down to my car and thought, 'Oh my God, SAP bought Concur - maybe tomorrow they'll buy Dairy Queen.' It was the best thing that happened to me on the day I was named CEO of Oracle.
Microsoft does platform, not really infrastructure, and they do a little bit of Saas.
Oracle has grown and advanced because we've been consistently willing to cannibalize ourselves.
A core focus of our effort is based on the recognition that our customers have varying needs, and one of their most important needs is to have choice.
Digital India is the only way for citizen empowerment, which can bring government transparency and accountability to citizens.
We got bigger, much scarier competitors. We ended up with Microsoft, a company with all the money in the world, the way I look at those guys. And IBM, another company that, historically, dwarfed us.
When we do acquisitions, we decide what we want. We decide what fills a hole. And if the price is too high, our alternative is the $5 billion we spend on R&D every year. We're not well-known for overpaying, because at Oracle we always have an alternative.
I like to say it's an attitude of not just thinking outside the box, but not even seeing the box.
My dream job was to work in an ice cream shop. Two weeks and five pounds later, I realized it wasn't for me. For many years, I had planned to be a corporate lawyer. As luck would have it, other than a summer internship, I didn't end up doing that either.
As much as people say they love change, they love it when you change - not when you want them to change. Even when it comes to processes they don't like, they're afraid of change.
In the cloud, customers don't want a six-month contract negotiation; that concept is absurd when you can implement a cloud-based suite from beginning to end in a month or a few months.
It is absolutely critical for competitiveness in the United States for us to really raise the bar in education, especially in math, in science, in technology.
Hopefully in the future, generational challenges will be measured by achievement, not gender.
What we need to do is run our business. We need to come up with a value prop that is so compelling that customers have to go for it.