主题：【科技八卦】ORACL的牛皮ELLISON第四次结婚乐，还让出CEO -- 西风陶陶

Ellison to share power at Oracle

By Mary Anne Ostrom and Elise Ackerman

Mercury News

For the first time in years, Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison is sharing power at the company he founded.

Oracle said Monday the software giant's board of directors will give the position of chairman to Ellison's long-time chief financial officer, Jeff Henley. And Ellison's two closest advisers, Safra Catz and Chuck Phillips, were appointed as co-presidents, increasing their role in daily operations.

The job shifts come after criticism of Ellison's tight control over the company he co-founded. The moves reflect Oracle's bid to convince Wall Street that the flamboyant Ellison, who remains CEO, has strong back-ups.

The job shifts, which include Phillips appointment to the board, mark the biggest leadership changes at Oracle in nearly four years. They come as the company is trying to complete its largest acquisition yet, the 8-month-old, $7.5 billion hostile takeover of PeopleSoft, which is pending antitrust review in the United States and Europe.

While the management changes still leave the 59-year-old Ellison, who owns about a quarter of Oracle shares, at the helm, they ignited speculation of who might succeed the larger-than-life executive.

The company immediately cautioned that the co-presidents are not intended to set up a possible succession battle to Ellison. But speculation nonetheless swirled that the new roles for Catz, 42, and Phillips, 44, will test their abilities to eventually take the chief executive slot.

``It takes people out of the shadows and into the firing line,'' said Erin Kinikin, research director for Forrester Research. ``You could certainly read this as two potential successors being given the chance to show their stuff. To me, it looks like an experiment with Henley in the chairman role as the safety net.''

For months, Henley, 59, has told the board he was considering retiring. That made Wall Street nervous, and his promotion was made to keep him in a key role, company officials said. Henley, who has served as CFO for 13 years, will remain in that job until a nationwide search for a successor is completed.

``Larry Ellison is the CEO and leader of Oracle and will be for years to come,'' said Michael Boskin, who heads the board's compensation and nomination committees. ``Jeff Henley will be at Oracle longer because he will be doing what he wants to do, focus on customers.''

The moves are also intended to show ``the world we are not a one-person company and we are not, we haven't been,'' said Oracle director Don Lucas. ``I think we are showing the world we have a top management team of 10, 15 folks and they are first class . . . I am concerned that view is not generally shared because of that lack of exposure.''

Ellison, who took the chairman title in 1990, gave it up temporarily between 1992 and 1995.

While Ellison and Henley have been the the company's key public faces as it boomed during the 1990s, and then experienced tough times as corporate spending on software collapsed, Catz and Phillips are now poised to take bigger roles.

The board has long wanted Catz, who will continue running global operations as she has for the past five years, to play a public role that is commensurate with her duties at the company. But Catz, an intensely private person, has been reluctant to do so since joining Oracle in 1999 after a more than 10-year friendship with Ellison.

A former investment banker who spent more than a decade at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Catz has been dubbed Ellison's ``chief of staff.'' She's provoked both praise from sales people she helped close deals and grumbling from others that resented the more centralized business practices she put in place. Recently, Catz has played a key role in Oracle's bid to acquire PeopleSoft, an acquistion she suggested.

Phillips joined Oracle just two weeks before the company launched its hostile bid for PeopleSoft in June, after a stellar career as a software stock analyst, most recently with Morgan Stanley. He will be in charge of field operations, adding sales and consulting to his marketing responsibilities.

He has been Oracle's point person on the PeopleSoft bid, along with Henley, charged with persuading Wall Street and customers to support the controversial acquisition.

The move also reflects a growing trend to give boards more independence by separating the chairman and CEO roles, according to Tad Piper, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray.

``Everyone is looking at processes and separation of duties,'' he said.

Also Monday, the European Commission said it has suspended its antitrust review of Oracle's bid to buy PeopleSoft while it waits for additional information from Oracle. The review had been scheduled to be completed by March 30. Last week, Oracle said in a court filing that it expected to hear the Justice Department decision by mid-March.

PeopleSoft said Monday it would repurchase up to $200 million in common stock, after recently completing a $350 million buyback. Such moves restrict share supplies and could increase the price Oracle might have to pay for PeopleSoft shares.

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Contact Mary Anne Ostrom at [email protected] or (408) 920-5574.

Contact Elise Ackerman at [email protected] or (408) 271-3774.