Not a fan of Ellison.
At all.
However, I can see that he *is* Oracle. I suspect that the board would be scared to cut ties in such a manner because they can see the value of having him in place, especially now the transition in mainstream architecture is back to Borging into the 'cloud'*
Without the force of a personality that pervades certain companies, you can see them starting to suffer the insecurities of shareholders and make, what they consider to be, safer and more defensive decisions which I foretell will result in them in little more than IBM. Yes IBM are still a massive, global company, but it seems more like a, well, best thing I can think of is the Masons.
Google are the only heavy hitters that look completely faceless. Apple, well I can't wait to see what happens to them in 20 years...should I make it that far.
Microsoft have shown how out of touch they have become with the whole 8 fiasco (and this is actually being typed on my 8.1, ironical IBM^H^H^H^HLenovo Thinkpad) in blatantly trying to out-Apple Apple's ecosystem and missing the point, or rather the Start button.
So now, with data being the core of everything, Oracle's protection racket has started to be under threat and I suspect Larry felt it, as seen by his acquisitions in recent years.
Oracle without Larry would be Apple without SJ. What M$ is without BG. Google are different. They seem really weirdly faceless, except for Schmidt, but I cannot take him seriously.
God forbid Linux without the steering of Torvalds. I am under no illusion of how control by committee would work out. I wish Beos flourished.
I could be very wrong, btw, but then that is why I comment and don't write articles. :)
*I really hate that term.