WinInsider

Oracle's fabled sales culture has broken down. Customers are angry, and Larry Ellison knows it. Here's how he's trying to shape the future of the world's second-largest software maker. Tales of hyperaggressive salespeople are nothing new to Oracle. The company is legendary for a sales culture that combines the fervor of tent revival preachers and the determination of combat Marines. Once the envy of the industry, it's a major reason Oracle became the world's second-largest software company, and its founder, Larry Ellison, one of the world's richest men.

Episodes like the North Dakota one suggest that Oracle's sales team either doesn't grasp the gravity of the company's situation or is simply unable to adapt its brute-force tactics to the new reality. State officials in places like South Dakota and Wisconsin have joined North Dakota in denouncing Oracle, complaining about everything from heavy-handed sales pitches to gouging on price. Many corporate clients have their own beefs; some say Oracle salespeople have lied about product capabilities. And in its most public debacle, Oracle has been dragged into a California political scandal in which the company is alleged to have stuck the state with as much as $41 million worth of software and services it will never use. There's no evidence yet that the company did anything wrong, and the scandal appears to be more about state politics than about Oracle; still, the headlines only reinforce the image of a sales force that routinely runs roughshod over customers.