Oracle's Ellison Flies into Fresh Battle

Computergram International, Oct 29, 1999

Fresh from taking the battle to Microsoft in his crusade to displace the client server computing paradigm with the network computer, Oracle Corp chief executive, Larry Ellison, upped the ante this week in his long-running feud with San Jose airport over landing rights for his Gulfstream V jet. Ellison vented his spleen against managers at the airport, the closest landing site to Oracle's Redwood Shores campus in silicon Valley after being needled by a local television reporter at a customer relationship management conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The scourge of Microsoft railed against "arbitrary and absurd" regulations at the airport which have ruled his jet too heavy to land, even though, if he says so himself, it's as quiet as a pussy-cat and no nuisance to local residents. In an impassioned broadside Ellison said he disputed the authority of the airport to levy such rules, which he said were legislated on a national, federal level. He said the airport's tolerance of the landing activities of his other, more noisy, jet, highlighted the "surreal aspect of this idiotic rule". When told airport authorities are readying a legal case against Oracle over use of the plane, Ellison said he'd see them in court. "I've no intention of adhering to the rules," stormed an unrepentant Ellison.