"In a recent press conference Larry Ellison stated that Oracle would have a product that would compete with Netezza (he named the company specifically) in 12 months time. The first and most obvious implication of this is that Oracle, no matter how it packages up its database, cannot compete with Netezza today. Sure, there are some things, maybe, that Oracle can do better than Netezza but where Netezza's strengths are, Oracle cannot compete, certainly in performance terms. And, by the way, don't think that I am especially knocking Oracle: the same applies to the other merchant database products as well.

"Now let me go back to this claim that Oracle will be able to compete with Netezza sometime next year. No, they won't. And neither would Microsoft or IBM if they tried it."

It's a thought-provoking piece, especially with the historical perspective we can apply from three years later. Clearly, Oracle has overcome the limitations Howard points to, but that's really my point here: Ellison fancies himself and Oracle the ultimate innovators and disruptors, and in that regard I think he might be very, very attracted to a company that reminds him of his own company.

Oracle has a lot going on, to be sure, with the new Exalogic middleware system Ellison announced last night, and a massive new high-end Exadata machine coming out today, and no doubt more surprises to come this week.

And I think one of those surprises will be that Oracle announces a significantly higher bid for Netezza than IBM's.

RECOMMENDED READING Global CIO: Oracle Launches 'Cloud In A Box' And New Cloud Business Global CIO: At Oracle Open World, Oracle Commits To Cloud Computing Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Top 10 Priorities At Oracle Open World Global CIO: Oracle's Larry Ellison Declares War On IBM And SAP Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Acquisition List: Who's #1? Global CIO: In Hurd's Wake, An Ugly Ending For Oracle's Charles Phillips Global CIO: Larry Ellison Looms Large Over Put-Down Of Oracle President Global CIO: Resurrecting Mark Hurd: Larry Ellison's War With IBM Global CIO: Larry Ellison And Mark Hurd: The Job Interview Global CIO: Burying Mark Hurd: Hewlett-Packard And Its Future Global CIO: Hewlett-Packard CEO Hurd's Strategy: The Infrastructure Company Global CIO: Oracle Dumps HP After Co-Creating 'Most Successful Introduction Ever' Global CIO: Larry Ellison's IBM-Slayer Is Oracle Exadata Machine Global CIO: IBM And Oracle Expose Hewlett-Packard's Achilles' Heel Global CIO: IBM Claims Hardware Supremacy And Calls Out HP's Hurd Global CIO: Larry Ellison's Hardware Boasts Are Nonsense, Says IBM Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's Top 10 Reasons For Buying Sun Global CIO: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison On The Future Of IT Bob Evans is senior VP and director of InformationWeek's Global CIO unit.

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