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.
Comments on “Using Board Members To Tweak Competitors”
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Maybe Beinhoff is trying to goad Ellison into doing something stupid – like way overpaying for salesforce.com
Re: No Subject Given
It’s pretty funny watching Ellison play the acquisition game while SAP continues to gobble up market share…