Microsoft was five years late in recognizing the importance of the Internet
and that is now benefiting Oracle which has been pushing hard these past five
years to make its application software Internet-friendly, said Oracle chief
Larry Ellison this week. Ellison, who has already displaced Bill Gates as the
richest man on the planet, said Oracle will become the world’s largest
software company as well.
Oracle is ahead of Microsoft in developing Internet software, Ellison
boasted. "Now it is our time to shine. Microsoft missed the Internet by
five years. You can't be five years late in my industry.'' Microsoft's Internet
strategy is based on a recently announced program dubbed .Net, which the company
says will one day make the Internet itself the basis of a new operating system
for computers. Microsoft has said it won't see significant revenues from .Net
products for about two years. Ellison has ridiculed Microsoft by giving Oracle's
strategy a similar nickname "dot-now.''
Ellison said that in addition to sales, Oracle will overtake Microsoft in
market value. Microsoft’s outstanding shares are worth about $220 billion,
compared with about $160 billion for Oracle. But in a major milestone, Oracle
has surpassed IBM, which is valued at about $154 billion. For now, Microsoft's
fate is closely linked to that of the PC industry. Ellison's strategy is
centered on his belief that virtually all PC-based software will eventually be
replaced with products designed for the Internet that run on powerful server
computers.