Larry Ellison has stepped down as CEO of Oracle. Not only was he the chief executive officer of the company, he was also the one who founded it. Perhaps the best illustration of how important Ellison is for the company is that there were two CEOs that were named to replace him.
Mark Hurd and Safra Catz are the two CEOs who will succeed Ellison, they were co-presidents before. Each would have a specific duty to take care of. Hurd will be the one to take care of sales, strategy and marketing. Catz will be the one to take care of manufacturing and legal matters while also acting as the Chief Financial Officer of the company.
But Ellison isn't going to be out of the picture. He will replace Jeff Henley as chairman. On top of that, he will also take on the role of chief technology officer for the company. Ellison guided Oracle for more than 30 years now to become the world's largest company when it comes to database-software. Oracle is also a leading provider of business programs. The company has an annual revenue of more than $35 million.
Ellison's stepping down marks a change in the industry as the CEOs who founded most of the large tech companies are now gone or have stepped down. This comes at a time of great change in the industry. The rise of cloud-based technologies could cause some losses for Oracle. The sales growth of Oracle has been steadily going down in the past few years. It has been struggling to find new customers and most of the sales that it has been generating comes from selling hardware to existing customers.
Ellison is the largest shareholder of the company. It is estimated that he owns 25% of the company and the next biggest shareholder owns 4.2%.
