'Get Bill' billboard sics Ellison on everyone (Oracle vs. Microsoft)

San Jose Mercury News ^ | Mon, Jan. 10, 2005 | John Boudreau, Dan Lee and Therese Poletti

[nickcarraway]

Andrew Damico wants to be Larry Ellison's hit man -- uh, mergers and acquisitions hit man, to be exact.

After all, the highly competitive software industry is a kind of warfare. And Ellison, chief executive of software giant Oracle, has just completed his own conquest, taking over software rival PeopleSoft.

Damico placed a billboard pitch on Highway 101 just south of Woodside Road in Redwood City that reads, ``Larry . . . Get Bill.'' It refers Ellison to a Web site, http://ellison.

[nickcarraway]

CONAN'S FINAL GIG WITH GATES: At the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas, many technology chief executives trotted out celebrities on stage to help them sell their message. From Steve Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith, teaming with Intel CEO Craig Barrett to sing ``Walk This Way,'' to singer Gwen Stefani pairing with Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina to tout a digital camera she helped HP design.

But at least NBC ``Late Night'' talk show host Conan O'Brien used his edgy sense of humor to poke fun at the industry and some of its major players. In a mock setup of his TV stage set, O'Brien interviewed Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, making fun of him half the time, with Gates occasionally cracking a smile.

To explain the absence of the drum rolls and other music embellishments during a brief stand-up routine before Gates came on stage, O'Brien mused that ``I guess Microsoft couldn't afford my band.''

Microsoft had some glitches during a few product demonstrations. At one point, O'Brien said, ``Things aren't working here, who's in charge of Microsoft?'' while Gates tried to grin and bear it. ``I will never be asked back,'' O'Brien said.

[Prost1]

Microsoft - Mediocre Products by Design!

[BerniesFriend]

Gee..I thought it was "Kill Bill Vol. I"...great flick..didn't like "Kill Bill Vol. II"..so disapointed..

[cyborg]

I went to a Microsoft launch party for Windows ME and the pocket pc. They had a windows machine and an Imac next to each other. The Imac rebooted itself and the windows pc crashed after they tried to demonstrate system restore. That was an OMNIOUS forecast of my experiences *LOL*

[DaveyB]

Didn't the president just make a speech condemning tyranny. Isn't time to overthrow Bill and replace Microsoft with innovation(all the people that Bill bought off or destroyed in order to corner the market). Larry is another big-time thug who also wants to rule the world.

[cyborg]

Should read ominous but you know what I mean... I was sitting there and everyone was laughing. The pocketpc behaves just like it's desktop kin.

[nickcarraway]

How is the snow?

[cyborg]

Stopped for a while but now it's light snow again.

[mcg1969]

Damnit, you didn't post the whole web site, and now their web page is hosed. I don't know what web site to go to now!

(I know it's not your fault, I'm just frustrated :))

[Choose Ye This Day]

I haven't seen either yet. What was so good about I and so bad about II?

[eno_]

I don't know anyone who would be excited about Microsoft and Oracle fighting over corporate IT departments too dumb to migrate to Linux, Apache, and the various choices in open source rdms.

[BerniesFriend]

The first had great stunts..mystery..action..tremendous fight scenes..the second was very slow and the mystery of the first was lost and not very exciting..