In his opening keynote of Oracle OpenWorld 2012, Larry Ellison made the following outrageous (even by Larry standards) statement:
“SAP has an in-memory machine, you know, that’s a little bit smaller than what we offer,” Ellison said. “We have 26TB of memory; they (SAP) offer point-five (0.5TB) terabytes of memory. It’s called HANA; her name is HANA. I promised Mark (Hurd) that when I did this presentation I was not going to mention them, I’m glad to keep the promise. The HANA in-memory machine is like really small.”
Tackling the second part first, promising not to mention SAP immediately after mentioning SAP can perhaps be forgiven, in this instance, as a senior moment. Let’s be honest, we all have them now and then — event you twenty-somethings.
But, seriously, Ellison not mentioning SAP? I simply cannot recall an interview or earnings call over the past decade during which Ellison failed to drop the “SAP” bomb.
Now on to Ellison’s more egregious claim that SAP has an in-memory machine “that’s a little bit smaller than what we offer [...] We have 26TB of memory; they (SAP) offer point-five (0.5TB) terabytes of memory.”
Fact: Just last May at SAPPHIRE in Orlando, IBM launched the 100TB IBM HANA analytics system to much fanfare.
Historically, if Oracle couldn’t beat a competitor it simply bought it or sued it or acquired it (or some combination thereof).
It will be interesting to see what Ellison’s next move will be.
But to blatantly lie? What page from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” did Ellison tear that tactic from?
SAP to Ellison:, “C’mon man!”
Understandably, SAP execs to exception to Ellison’s OprnWorld comments. Here’s a sampling of articles:
SAP Exec: Oracle CEO’s Claim ‘Fries My Brain’
SAP Invades Oracle Open World #oow
SAP Exec on Oracle: ‘More Hardware, Very Little Substance’
