Using Board Members To Tweak Competitors
from the board-games dept
Larry Ellison was one of the original investors and board members for Salesforce.com, which seemed a bit strange, since it was obvious that they were on something of a collision course. In fact, it didn't take long for Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff (a former Larry Ellison protege at Oracle) to kick Ellison off the board (though, he kept the investment...). After Oracle bought Siebel last month, the two sides exchanged some words. Now, in what looks to be a move simply to tweak Oracle and Ellison, Salesforce.com has put former PeopleSoft CEO, Craig Conway, on their board. Conway, of course, was the CEO who Ellison threatened to shoot during the fight to buy PeopleSoft. He was also the guy who PeopleSoft eventually fired, claiming he lied to the board. While he is, obviously, an experienced enterprise software executive, it still seems like the main reason for giving Conway a seat on a board where Ellison once sat is to simply prod Oracle and Ellison.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]