Chief executive of recently troubled database giant Oracle Corp, Larry Ellison has been trying to boost his company’s fortunes at this week’s NationsBanc Montgomery Securities Conference in San Francisco, bullishly predicting third quarter (ending February 28) database sales will grow 25% year on year, instead of the feeble 3% in the period just reported. To be safe, Ellison jokingly adds that the forecast has a margin for error of plus or minus 50%. Rather bizarrely, given his endless highly confident musings on the subject, the world’s second best known software billionaire partly attributed the slump on his company’s inability to deliver on the promise of network computing (!). We thought we would be there nine months ago, quoth the Ellster, [but] we’re there now, he adds. A more believable reason is that the company has finally started shipping software development tools for use with Oracle8. Ellison further derides the idea that the database market is saturated as bizarre. That 25%, incidentally, would still be below the 30-40% the company has enjoyed the past few quarters. Ellison also foresees a return to 50% growth in its financial and manufacturing software lines.
