A kinder, gentler Oracle?

Well, some of it, anyway. At least, so says Josh Greenbaum about Oracle’s John Wookey (head of Oracle’s applications efforts) attempts to brush Oracle with a kinder, gentler image.

My rumor is the following: John Wookey…is personally chagrined  at the lawsuit and the negative press (and analyst coverage) his group has been getting of late….Wookey wants to be recognized for his team’s achievements, and would rather not be tarred with the same brush that has been used to pillory his bosses’ strategies and methods. His personal efforts at being a nice guy are genuine, despite his company’s rapacious reputation.

I’ll buy that. At least, the people I know at Oracle are also nice and intelligent people. I still wonder why the company does things like try to get SAP customers to diss the company and its software (on camera at the SAP SAPPHIRE show). And I don’t like its approach to Linux.

But maybe Oracle, like Microsoft, has an old guard versus new guard problem. I feel certain (perhaps naively) that Microsoft would have a more nuanced, positive approach to open source if Ray Ozzie were at the helm (or even if Bill Gates were). Microsoft will always struggle to accept open source while Ballmer runs the show.

Ballmer is to Microsoft as Ellison is to Oracle. Its heart and soul, yes, but perhaps one that the company would do well to shed as both companies look to the future? It’s hard to say, given how successful both men have been in leading their companies to outsized returns on the enterprise software market. But perhaps this very success will hobble the companies as they approach the future? Time will tell.