The Oracle Edge: How Oracle Corporation's Take No Prisoners Strategy Has Made an $8 Billion Software Powerhouse (Hardcover)

by Stuart Read (Author) "ALL STREET INVESTORS, SILICON VALLEY JUNKIES, AND AVID COMPUTER USERS ALIKE HAVE MARVELED AT THE SUCCESS AND GROWTH OF ORACLE CORPORATION..." (more)
Key Phrases: database appliance, field support engineers, kernel team, Larry Ellison, New Media, Boot Camp (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The software developed by the Oracle Corporation affects the lives of every business person. It is the world''s second largest software company, and the world''s largest database company. This study examines how Oracle has achieved such growth.'

Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580621651
• ISBN-13: 978-1580621656
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,638,120 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars All marketing hype, no facts, March 23, 2000

By	Oracle's fifth employee (Truckee, California) - See all my reviews

One of Oracle's founders and I had a good laugh over this book. The inaccuracies are amazing. About two pages in it says that Oracle was started to build a database on an IBM mainframe for the Air Force. Wrong customer, wrong computer, wrong project. It doesn't get much better later on. The author didn't bother to interview any early Oracle people except the accountant. The book says there are few nerds at Oracle, and everyone is fashionably dressed. This tells me he only met sales and marketing people, not the several thousand technicians who worked in the adjacent buildings and actually built the products. A bit later the author says that he was moved from an inexpensive motel to a fancy hotel because that's how Oracle people lived. He doesn't mention that the manager in charge of that group was fired for wasting money. I could go on, but this review must be limited.

I think the book does suggest the tone of the sales and marketing people when left on their own, but the shareholders should know that most people are modest, hardworking, normal people and that wasting money is not the corporate standard.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Insights Are Few And Hidden By Unimportant Data, May 7, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

The Oracle Edge is too superficial to be of much value to all but those who want a quick excursion into the subject. You'll have to provide your own interpretations. The author doesn't provide much.

The key lessons I took away from the book are that the company succeeded by providing software benefits for large companies ahead of anyone else in the areas of compatibility across computer platforms, upgrading to new releases, adding new applications, and having maximum up-time. It appeared to have helped that its early competitors did little to respond to any challenge Oracle provided.

As to the future, it looks like Oracle's processes for improvement are not yet robust enough to take on the Microsoft hegemony in personal computers.

Fully eighty percent of the book seems to be about recruiting methods, compensation processes, expense accounts, ways of meeting with customers, and handling of new product releases that are completely unremarkable in the context of what best practice companies do. You can skip over those materials.

One thing that makes this book a little suspect is that there is primarily perspective provided about the company from the author and financial people (I couldn't tell if it was one or two in the latter case). That's a pretty thin base for a whole book about a company. Interviews with customers and competitors would have been nice.

I suspect that the next book about Oracle that someone writes will be the standard for all of us to consider. This book reminds me of The McKinsey Way, a thin abstract of the famous consulting firm's processes from someone who didn't operate at a very high level in the company.

If you don't feel you have to know about Oracle, I suggest you take a pass on this book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An Oracle Employee in California, December 30, 1999

By A Customer

An employee of Oracle, I was thrilled to see this book. However, the material is superficial, disappointingly low on hard fact and examples. Few takeways. Particularly disappointing is the info onthe provision of globalized products by Oracle - that this book was written by an American Marketing person is obvious.