Oracle Corp. (ORCL) Chief Executive Larry Ellison said Wednesday the business software giant will release an extensivecollection of tools based on the Internet 'cloud' in about a week, as the 35-year-old technology giant strives to maintain its edge.

'We have all our applications in the cloud, starting June 6th,' Ellison said during an appearance at the D: All Things Digital conference near Los Angeles, adding that he may publish his first tweet to mark the occasion.

Oracle, founded by Ellison in 1977, is a dominant force in traditional business programs, including databases and application software. The company more recently added a hardware business by buying Sun Microsystems Inc.

The company has inspired a number of younger rivals that chose to deliver software as a service using the Internet, a model these days called cloud computing.

Though Oracle is sometimes characterized as a laggard in such services, Ellison was quick to take credit as seeing the potential for such offerings in the mid-1990s. One early example was NetSuite Inc. (N), where he remains the largest shareholder with about 45% of its stock.

'NetSuite was my idea,' Ellison said.

Another company, Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM), was started after Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff--a onetime Ellison protege at Oracle--'kind of copied' NetSuite, Ellison claimed, to laughter.

Ellison said Oracle's new cloud-based offerings were built using a design that breaks away from the model used by companies such as Salesforce.com. That approach, called 'multitenancy,' combines services for multiple companies on the same server.

One problem with multitenancy, Ellison said, is that customers find themselves on new versions of the underlying software when their supplier wants to, not when they do. Oracle's approach gives each customer what the industry calls a virtual machine, allowing them to upgrade when they want.

'We have a much more modern version of the cloud,' Ellison says.

In a wide-ranging interview, the Oracle CEO said he continues to run engineering at Oracle because 'I don't know what I'd do if I retired,' acknowledging that much of what drives him is the desire to compete.

That has helped establish a roguish reputation for the CEO, who seems to have fun with the image. Sometimes, during meetings, Ellison said people will tell him he has defied their expectations--perhaps because 'I didn't bite the head off a small animal,' he suggested.

Ellison, as is often the case at public appearances, mocked rivals such as International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ)--and particularly H-P's former CEO Leo Apotheker, whom Ellison at times insisted on using with the American pronunciation, like 'lee-o,' rather than the more European 'layo.'

John Letzing

• executive [ig´zekjutiv]   a.行政的 n.行政官   (初中英语单词)
• wednesday [´wenzdi]   n.星期三   (初中英语单词)
• release [ri´li:s]   vt&n.释放；放松；赦免   (初中英语单词)
• extensive [ik´stensiv]   a.广阔的；大量的   (初中英语单词)
• collection [kə´lekʃən]   n.收集；征收；募捐   (初中英语单词)
• maintain [mein´tein]   vt.维持；保持；继续   (初中英语单词)
• conference [´kɔnfərəns]   n.讨论(会)；会谈   (初中英语单词)
• application [,æpli´keiʃən]   n.申请；申请书；应用   (初中英语单词)
• customer [´kʌstəmə]   n.顾客，买主，主顾   (初中英语单词)
• interview [´intəvju:]   n.&vt.接见；会见；交谈   (初中英语单词)
• international [,intə´næʃənəl]   a.国际的，世界的   (初中英语单词)
• pronunciation [prə,nʌnsi´eiʃən]   n.发音(法)   (初中英语单词)
• european [juərə´pi:ən]   a.欧洲的 n.欧洲人   (初中英语单词)
• oracle [´ɔrəkl]   n.预言(者)；圣理名言   (高中英语单词)
• seeing [si:iŋ]   see的现在分词 n.视觉   (高中英语单词)
• potential [pə´tenʃəl]   n.&a.潜在的；可能的   (高中英语单词)
• engineering [,endʒi´niəriŋ]   n.工程技术；工程学   (高中英语单词)
• dominant [´dɔminənt]   a.统治的；占优势的   (英语四级单词)
• traditional [trə´diʃənəl]   a.传统的，习惯的   (英语四级单词)
• hardware [´hɑ:dweə]   n.五金器皿   (英语四级单词)
• version [´və:ʃən, ´və:rʒən]   n.翻译；说明；译本   (英语四级单词)
• reputation [repju´teiʃən]   n.名誉；名声；信誉   (英语四级单词)
• underlying [,ʌndə´laiiŋ]   a.基础的；下层的   (英语六级单词)