Oracle, Cisco, Google, and NetApp led all Silicon Valley tech companies in giving out stock options in 2009, and the top executives of those companies were the primary beneficiaries. CEOs who hit it big in 2009 grants: Ellison, John Chambers, and not one but two NetApp execs. But go figure: Google's Eric Schmidt didn't make the top 5.From a Wall Street Journal article:

Many Silicon Valley technology companies might be shifting away from using stock options, but they haven't stopped handing them out.

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Silicon Valley firms such as Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. continued to give out big options packages to executives during the recession last year, according to an analysis from executive-compensation research firm Equilar Inc. Some companies handed out option grants that were similar in scope to what they gave in 2008, while others raised such grants substantially from 2008, when they didn't hand out any stock options to executives.

Equilar's analysis showed the following 2009 stock-option grants by the top four companies on the list, as ranked by size of grants given to the CEOs-below, I've broken out company name, value of grants given to CEOs, and value of grants given to various top executives across the company:

--Oracle: value of grants to CEO Larry Ellison, $57.4 million; value of total grants to top executives, $174.3 million.

--Cisco Systems: value of grants to CEO John Chambers, $8.1 million; value of total grants to top executives, $34.9 million.

--Google: value of grants to CEO Eric Schmidt: unknown, as he did not make Top 5 list; value of total grants to top executives, $20.3 million.

--NetApp: value of grants to current CEO Thomas Georgens, $7.0 million; value of grants to former CEO Dan Warmenhoven, $5.0 million; value of total grants to top executives, $17.1 million.