In addition to transitioning to the cloud, our customers continue to invest in premium versions of our on-prem server products like Window Server, System Center and SQL Server.
We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.
Web GIS allows us to take our systems of record - our traditional server and desktop technologies - and integrate them, bringing them together into a system of systems.
The moment you think creed and form and ceremony the "be-all" and "end-all", then you are in bondage. Take part in them to help others, but take care they do not become a bondage.
First, we want to have a direct relationship with our customers wherever we can. On open platforms like PC and Android, it's possible for them to get the software direct from us. We can be in contact with them and not have a third-party distributor in between.
Motivate them, train them, care about them and make winners out of them. We know if we treat our employees right, they'll treat the customers right. And if customers are treated right, they'll come back.
I always take a relationship to the next level. If that works out, I take it to the next level after that, until I finally reach that level when it becomes absolutely necessary for me to leave.
We're trying to make our software available to users in as economically efficient a way as possible. That means distributing the software directly to them; taking payment through Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and other options; and not having a store take 30 percent.
Motivate them, train them, care about them, and make winners out of them... they'll treat the customers right. And if customers are treated right, they'll come back.
This is what customers pay us for - to sweat all these details so it's easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely like it.
If someone works with me, I try to take them to the next level.
We have to broaden our appeal to more customers than simply high-end customers. We have to understand that, in the aggregate, there are fewer customers out there, so we have to appeal to them all.
Oracle is my second job ever that did not involve waitressing. But I still have my waitress apron just in case this does not work out. It's just that I fell in love with software when I was programming in college. When I was an investment banker, there were mostly mainframe companies and very few software ones.
Software is a reflection of our own mind. And as our software improves it will not only take on the patterns of our minds more closely, but it will also pick up the energy of our minds; in other words, I think that software is alive.
In the highest antiquity, the people did not know that there were rulers. In the next age they loved them and praised them. In the next they feared them; in the next they despised them.
If people don't get paid for their inventions, that's not a good thing. In the case of many patents, there are people who aren't in a position to take them to the next level. If you don't enforce your rights, no one is going to enforce them for you.