Software-maker Oracle's product chief Thomas Kurian steps down

Oracle executive Thomas Kurian has resigned from his post effective immediately, less than a month after his leave of absence stoked concerns of discord at the world’s second-largest software maker.
 
Kurian, who as president of product development was Oracle’s fourth-highest leader, will pursue other opportunities, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing. His responsibilities were reassigned to other senior executives in Oracle’s development organization.
 
Kurian, 51, was said to have had a falling out with Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, Bloomberg News reported earlier in September. The dispute was said to have centred on whether Oracle should make more of its software available to run on cloud computing from chief rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as a way to diversify from its own struggling infrastructure. Ellison was said to have opposed such a move, a person familiar with the matter said at the time. On a conference call earlier this month, Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd said he expected Kurian to return to the company from his leave, which was announced on September 5.

 

The departure ends Kurian’s 22-year career at the database and applications giant, where he climbed through the ranks by overseeing products that led to sales growth. His final act — leading Oracle’s transition to cloud computing — was less successful.
 
The company lags behind Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Salesforce.com Inc. in different key cloud-computing segments.