Ellison: Oracle remains unbreakable

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Larry Ellison

By Joris Evers, IDG News Service\Amsterdam Bureau

(IDG) -- Oracle Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said Thursday that Oracle software remains unbreakable and mocked a memo sent this week by arch rival Bill Gates stressing to Microsoft Corp.'s employees the importance of security in the company's products.

"Microsoft isn't good at security. We're good at that and I don't think sending a memo is going to help," said Ellison, speaking to reporters after his keynote at Oracle's second annual European AppsWorld conference here. He was commenting on the memo about security that Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect sent to his employees this week.

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Ellison claimed that Oracle software has never been hacked, and blasted Microsoft for the security problems its products have faced recently. He told the audience it only took 20 minutes until the first hacker broke into Microsoft's Passport Wallet, and described Microsoft's Exchange e-mail system as "a bag of viruses."

"Twenty minutes compared to never, that's a lot. Our customer, the (U.S.) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), would get very upset (if) somebody looks in their database," Ellison said.

Oracle, in Redwood Shores, California, can be reached at http://www.oracle.com/