The Hindu Business Line : When Ellison was caught on the wrong foot

AS he prepared to address an audience sitting a world across, Mr Larry J. Ellison, the flamboyant Chairman and CEO of Oracle Corporation, would have never thought his evening would be spoiled by an irate Indian bureaucrat.

Dr Vishwapati Trivedi, Commissioner, Commercial Tax, Madhya Pradesh, stood up during the question and answer session of Oracle Executive Summit and told Mr Ellison in no uncertain terms that the Oracle database software deployed by his department to automate tax collection process has collapsed completely.

Worse, Dr Trivedi minced no words when he complained that Oracle India support team has not been responsive and has not yet fixed the problem. "That's why I am raising this issue to you directly," he told Mr Ellison who was addressing the Indian audience via satellite from his headquarters in California.

The Oracle chief was surprised at the criticism, but was quick to point out that the software programme running on top of the Oracle 9i database could have created the problem.

"It is hard to believe... You are the first person to say our database has collapsed. The responsibility is with the people who wrote the software programme," Mr Ellison said, but assured Mr Trivedi that he would look into the complaint anyway.

Later, Mr Trivedi told newspersons that the State had spent about Rs 13 crore for computerising the commercial tax department but it never worked due to software snags. CMC was the implementation partner of Oracle for the project.

Later, at a press conference, Oracle India Managing Director, Mr Shekhar Dasgupta, admitted that there were glitches in the project and Oracle and CMC are together trying to fix them.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Swaraj moots death for spurious drug makers

Slump in domestic sales — Tractor makers eye global market

Infosys net rises 28 pc in Q1 — Guidance revised upwards

Tech stocks emerge from the shadows — Sensex gains 58 points

When Ellison was caught on the wrong foot

Infosys employee strength gets bigger

Oracle to double staff in India