The Oracle of Oracle.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf

Amacom, 226 pages. $24.95.

Florence M. Stone.

The oracle in question, of course, is Oracle Corp. founder and CEO Lawrence Ellison. Ellison is often painted as a larger-than-life figure -- audacious, controlling and self-assured to a fault, a lover of Japanese samurai culture, a playboy with platinum tastes. He's been in the news lately as the huge software firm has slumped a bit, while he personally maps out a campaign for the upcoming America's Cup yacht races.

Author Stone has written books about Dell Computer and Amazon.com, so she's certainly familiar with the high-tech arena. And like Dell and Amazon, Oracle is largely identified with a founding chief executive -- but Ellison has been around a lot longer, since Oracle began as Software Development Labs in 1977. Despite some ups and downs, Oracle is the second-largest software company in the...