Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
-- -- -- - ------ - ---------. ----- ------ - � - - --- -- _ .- - - . �, ---- :. -�� $SSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSS$$SSSSS$ .. ', ' ---- - - ,,:. ' " :�� '-- -'- --- - -- -._- and stability, makes the country "more developed" ali\�S�M$$$S$$$$$ attractive" than most of the other newly "indepenJ���Sjt�$$$$$$$$$ mer Soviet republics, Many people in Almaty think this is a good thing, on, devaluation of currency, the collapse of the pen system, and mind-boggling environmental degradation It is here that Chris Hummel, a very man, and his ex-KGB sidekick Alexei pop out of their chauffeured but non- striding up to the Meisterbrau Pub where we are meeting for beers looking like they are ready for a morning meeting with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison at company headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. These are two of the few people in this technological back water who can successfully imitate Silicon Valley during the day; they are even sporting pressed suits and ties to kick back for suds and shashlik, the local shish kebabs. To get to this "meeting," I passed the site of an under reported Soviet massacre in 1986, when hun dreds of ethnic Kazakh students were killed or imprisoned in the first uprising of Glasnost. Kazakhstan is vast, sparsely popu lated, only moderately totalitarian and sitting on enough natural resources to make Western investors take notice. This, com ined with Kazakhstan's relative modernity II make a capitalist out of anyone. And Oracle wants a piece it, valley thinKs utatin tlie at e e the way silicon Hummel and Shlykov are su batomic components in Larry Ell ison's plan to create a company so big it will make Bill Gates's shop look like a Yugo fa'ttor)' To achieve this goal, Oracle is diversify-in {..:, _____ ___ --: laye te d to do t ings in Silico ai le)' now that Wall Street has discovered t em, But the meat and potatoes for Ellison is still the increasingly complex soft- ware that runs businesses: databases. In the information econ- omy of the twenty-first century, if you control this market, it's about like",well, picture the families that ran the concrete concessions during the construction of the American interstates, And though Oracle is a still-growing behemoth, the big players in the computer revolution ten years ago, who were getting front-page Wall Street Journal coverage, aren't even mentioned by young technology reporters now, Warlg, Atari, and Commodore? Has-beens. Ellison and his ilk are_ shrewd enough to realize this, and even Gates has said he doesn't expect Microsoft to be such a hot topic in the next generation. So what does Oracle do? Many things, including, it seems, marketing the Digital Lifestyle in the far corners of the world, where people are less di gitally advanced and will still accept a database system or a hard drive that's laughed off as obsolete in Japan, Germany and the States, --. �S 51 l5S$S$$S$S$SS S$SS$S$$$S$$S$$$$S S$S$SSS5SSSS5S5$SS S$$SS$$$$$� $ $$$S sr :>. S""�: \� $ SS$S $� S-! $' ;� $ S$$$ $5$SS$$$5S$5$5$S$5 $$$$$$$$$$$$S$5$$$ $$$$$$$$$$S$$$$$$S $$$$5$$$$5$5S$5$$$ $$$5$$5$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$S$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ , � ,$SSS$$SS$$$$