Softwar - An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle

I've been meaning to pick this up for some years, and finally did while killing a few hours at KLIA. And I'm glad I did, devouring it last weekend. It is a great read, no matter what views you may personally hold about Larry or Oracle itself. So many things about the way you see Oracle operate today are given a rich historical background. Fascinating. And remarkably balanced ... I'd say its still 50/50 whether you'll finish the book with more or less respect for Larry and Oracle. Since the final touches to the epilogue were made in March 2004 (just on the verge of the PeopleSoft acquisition), it was a bit like watching “Fellowship of the Ring”. The story is unfinished and you can’t wait for the next episode of the saga to come out. But despite it being a few years old, I think it remains a highly recommended read especially if you work in enterprise computing. I do hope Matthew Symonds gets to continue the story in another book (a SQL?). Favourite quote .. LE writes, "Okay. Maybe database clustering is not as cool as flight. But it's close." See also: Savio Rodrigues' review