This article is more than 1 year old

Larry Ellison comes out fighting against HP Apotheker 'madness'

'Speechless' for a nanosecond. Oracle boss lashes out (again)

Oracle boss Larry Ellison was uncharacteristically lost for words, after Hewlett-Packard hired ex SAP CEO Leo Apotheker as its new chief late last week. But the silence didn't last long.

“I’m speechless,” he told the Wall Street Journal, before quickly sharpening his tongue and adding that HP had selected a man “who was recently fired because he did such a bad job of running SAP”.

Ellison opined that HP, which in August unseated his chum Mark Hurd from the position of CEO – following sexual harassment allegations – had “several good internal candidates” for the top job.

Hurd, of course, is Oracle’s co-prez as of last month when Ellison lovingly opened his arms to the disgraced former boss of HP.

German software maker SAP, meanwhile, is one of Oracle’s biggest rivals. So no wonder then that Ellison would be critical of HP’s decision to take on Apotheker.

“None of the HP board members own much HP stock so they have little to lose,” Ellison told the WSJ. “But the HP employees, customers, partners and shareholders will suffer.”

However, Larry couldn’t resist returning to his full blown outspoken self with this entertaining verbal slum dunk: “The HP board needs to resign en masse… right away. The madness must stop.” ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like