Oracle's brash CEO Larry Ellison might have resigned his board seat at Apple, but he can still think different. For years, Oracle built its reputation as the bulletproof database that companies just had to deploy, price be damned. But as IT spending has slumped, so have appetites for even more powerful databases. So Oracle has pushed into Linux, seeking to outflank Microsoft for mid-sized businesses.

In early April, Ellison took the stage with Dell CEO Michael Dell to announce a partnership in data centers—with Oracle9i database software running on Dell servers with Linux. Touting lower cost server clusters, Ellison said, "If you want higher performance, you have to be willing to spend less." Unfortunately, Dell's management software might not be able to handle larger, more complex cluster environments.

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