ShadowRAM: May 28, 2007

No More Wind In Larry's Sail
•Oracle

His Oracle BMW Racing effort to wrest the yachting prize back from foreigners ended in defeat at the hands of the Luna Rossi team. Some estimate the effort cost $200 million. (I wonder if that includes the boat replicas that show up at Oracle World each year?)

After four losses, Ellison benched his skipper (and racing CEO) Chris Dickson, who ended up watching the defeat on TV. Chuck Phillips and Safra Catz, take notice.

News reports said Ellison looked on stony-faced and sunglass-covered, as his rivals celebrated wildly.

Then it was Dickson, not Ellison, who had to meet the press.

Lotus Lovefest A Big Hit
• Jim Manzi, Mitch Kapor, Frank Ingari, Frank Moss, Ray Ozzie, Deb Besemer. All there. As was a display of the zillions of vintage Lotus T-shirts from over the years. As were John Landry and Bob Weiler. Not there: Jeff Papows and Steve Crummey.

Lotus' 25th anniversary soiree was a blast. Kapor and Manzi spoke of Lotus' heyday, and most of the vets there agreed Lotus was their best job—ever. One remembered the employee meeting after IBM bought the then-Microsoft-weakened Lotus in 1995. In true Lotus fashion, employees were encouraged to ask questions. IBM Software guru Steve Mills was on hand. After a series of queries about logistics and fundamentals, one Lotus long-timer got up to ask (paraphrasing here): "But what about the fun?" An attendee said he thought Mills' head would explode. His answer, through gritted teeth, was something along the lines of: "Well, making money is fun." Next question.

At any rate, the alums may be longer in the tooth, but the fun factor was fully operational.

Seen And Heard
• There are stars, and there are royal stars. Bell Micro got the latter treatment recently when it hosted a royal affair featuring Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, at its San Jose HQ. His Royal Highness was in the Valley to promote the Duke of Edinburgh's Award-Young Americans' Challenge. The award was designed to challenge young people to achieve their best. Don Bell learned of the effort while in the U.K. and agreed to help rally U.S. support from other tech CEOs and VCs.

• Tech Data's TechSelect event has shared hotels with some interesting groups in the past, including beauty pageant contestants and Playboy hopefuls. But this year, Stephen Ale, COO of solution provider Richards Computer, had an elevator experience with 7-foot-6-inch NBA star Yao Ming, whose Houston Rockets were in Salt Lake City to play the Utah Jazz. "I turned into the elevator hallway and started to enter an open elevator," Ale said. "Yao came ducking out and straightened up right in front of me. My nose was an inch from his belly button."