The Oracle Edge: How Oracle Corporation's Take No Prisoners Strategy Has Made an $8 Billion Software Powerhouse
Author: Stuart Read
List Price: $19.95
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ISBN: 1580621651
Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (January, 2000)
Sales Rank: 102,487
Average Customer Rating: 2.62 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 3 out of 5
Looking at Oracle from a perspective
Oracle Edge attempts to give an insight into how Oracle built a huge organization from a tiny project started by Larry Ellison for a client. It describes how Larry focused on aggressive methods to grow the company, and the upsides and downsides of the methods used. Many incidents are described by the author, involving sales and marketing people, technical employees and senior employees of the organization. These give a good idea about the culture of the organization, and how it has evolved over the years. Some interesting aspects of the book were the aggressive sales focus, maintaining a core-group for product development, extraordinary rewards for the best employees, a rather different hiring criteria, and other mechanisms used to communicate in the organization. The book is probably not for technical reading, and may not even give a complete picture of the organization, but it gives some interesting experiences and perspective of the author about the organization, its early days, and its tremendous growth over the years.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Too superficial
I picked this book up a couple of years ago and when I read it then, I thought it was too unreal, too fictitious. Everything the author wrote about Oracle was that Oracle is the paradise and there is not a thing wrong about Oracle. I read it again a month back and thinking it would changed my mind. It didn't. In fact, it made it even worse. I have been with several high profile Silicon Valley tech companies and despite the rosy outlook of these companies (especially during the dot-com days), it was not all heaven. The author failed miserably to inject realism into Oracle machinery. I would definitely give this book a thumbs down.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Insight & Frosting
Much of this work seems like a light and fluffy tribute to Oracle, without looking very hard at what might be ethical issues with the business practices described. If, however, you are negotiating a contract with Oracle, some of the basic hardball tactics described in the book will prepare you for the session and help to educate any starry eyed rookie team members regarding what they are up against when playing in the big leagues. Similar Products
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