Ebay Will Buy Oracle?

July 5, 2003 12:00 AM

Ebay Will Buy Oracle? Tim O'Reilly reads the trends and tea leaves, and forsees a day when "The value will be driven up the stack to data." One implication of this is that web-service based companies will take over the world. Thus his prediction that Ebay will buy Oracle, which is less a specific prognostication as a potential example. [via slashdot.org]
posted by weston (12 comments total)

ebay buying oracle is about as silly as aol buying time-warner
posted by kjh at 12:26 AM on July 5, 2003

Or will Oracle end up being sold ON ebay?
posted by wendell at 12:58 AM on July 5, 2003

It seems like a lifetime ago (but really it was only a couple of years) when I was saying stuff like "the value will be driven up the stack to data" on a near-daily basis to confused but enthusiastic Chief Whatever Officers, and making heaps of money doing it.

Ah, the good old days of the fin de siecle.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:27 AM on July 5, 2003

i'm still waiting for the peoplesoft takeover.
posted by shadow45 at 1:48 AM on July 5, 2003

Will SCO also buy IBM?
posted by azazello at 1:57 AM on July 5, 2003

I'm not sure I entirely grasped the significance of the article, but how wild is it to further extrapolate and say that Google would then buy them both?
posted by alumshubby at 8:32 AM on July 5, 2003

Not until someone pounds a stake into the spot in Larry Ellison's chest where a normal human's heart would be...
posted by JollyWanker at 8:45 AM on July 5, 2003

I've wondered for awhile now if MS will acquire Borg Warner so they can get the trademark on Borg and then make everyone stop referring to them by that epithet.
posted by billsaysthis at 10:23 AM on July 5, 2003

I'm not sure I entirely grasped the significance of the article, but how wild is it to further extrapolate and say that Google would then buy them both?

If I understand the article correctly, Google doesn't have the absolutely huge body of human contributors that Ebay and Amazon do. Yet. I don't doubt their purchase of Pyra Labs -- which didn't make sense to me until now -- has something to do with this. Anyway, that's why O'Reilly said that Google's lock is different than both.

My question is how I can use this information to make tons of cash.
posted by weston at 10:47 AM on July 5, 2003

weston, that is indeed the question one should ask after reading the interview on this most capitalist of holidays.
posted by billsaysthis at 1:29 PM on July 5, 2003

Actually it's the question I should *answer* and not tell anyone until about four years from now when I'm being interviewed by major media outlets.
posted by weston at 1:53 PM on July 5, 2003

weston, if you answer it I want a job--it's the least you can do for me.
posted by billsaysthis at 4:31 PM on July 5, 2003