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Change Your Life! |
Ellison surpasses Gates in key wealth benchmark |
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News |
April 30, 2000 SAN FRANCISCO, APR 29 (AP) - Oracle Corp.'s Larry Ellison has become technology's top tycoon after a truly bad month at the Microsoft office for Bill Gates.
Investors have bailed out of Microsoft in the past four weeks, erasing dlrs 27.1 billion of Gates' vast personal fortune, as he fights the U.S. government's efforts to break up his computer software empire.
In the same time frame, Ellison, a longtime Gates critic, has seen the value of his Oracle holdings rise by dlrs 1.3 billion.
Ellison took the symbolic throne for the first time Friday when Oracle's stock rose by dlrs 2.62 1/2 to close at dlrs 79.93 3/4. Microsoft fell 6 1/4 cents to close at dlrs 69.75.
That means Ellison's 662.6 million shares of Oracle stock are worth dlrs 53 billion, while Gates' 741.7 million shares of Microsoft stock are worth dlrs 51.7 billion.
Gates, the world's richest person through much of the '90s, remains well ahead of Ellison in overall wealth because he owns an estimated dlrs 10 billion in assets outside of Microsoft stock, according to Forbes magazine. Ellison holds an estimated dlrs 200 million in assets besides his Oracle stock, Forbes said.
Ellison's rise nonetheless represents a significant milestone.
The computer industry is renowned for being intensely competitive and wealth accumulation is the ultimate scorecard. While Microsoft has been battling the U.S. government to keep its business intact, Ellison has pushed Oracle - the top provider of database software - into lucrative new markets by helping customers use the Internet to reduce their expenses.
The change in fortunes, though, has more to do with the ground Microsoft lost during the past month than the inroads made by Oracle. Microsoft's market value has plunged by dlrs 190 billion, or 34 percent, since March 31 while Oracle's stock has inched up by dlrs 5.3 billion, or 2 percent.
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