Oracle CEO Larry Ellison caused outrage on day three of Oracle Open World 2013 by blowing off his keynote speech in favour of sailing.
Ellison was due to make three big cloud announcements regarding Oracle’s introduction of Database as a Service, Java as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service.
But, after Team Oracle USA won two races to tie 8-8 with Emirates Team New Zealand in the first-to-nine- Americans Cup tournament, he opted to spend time on the boat instead of at the conference.
As executive VP of product development, Thomas Kurian, Oracle, took to the stage to fill in for the absent Ellison, there was a mass exodus of disgruntled customers from the Moscone conference centre in San Francisco.
Many of them took to social media to express their displeasure at the no-show.
One commentator tweeted: "Larry not showing up. Boating more important than 60k customers."
Another said: "It’s not just that Larry is standing up his customers. Last week he stood up shareholders by bailing out on financial analysts."
A further tweet added: "Shame Larry couldn’t deliver the keynote from the boat."
A more sympathetic Tweeter commented: "Larry Ellison is blowing off his own customers at OOW13 for the Americas Cup. Can’t say I blame him."
