Penril DataCommunications Network Inc is to sell its Technipower Inc power-supply unit to Venture Partners, a Kensington, Connecticut venture capital firm, for about $4m, as part of its restructuring.

Santa Cruz Operation Inc’s named its in-house replacement for UnixWare supporters club UTG Inc the Unix Computing Forum. A support organization for the OEM group will be part of the enterprise solutions business unit reporting to the company’s VP enterprise solutions Mike Shelton. Carl Ziegler will manage the transition of UTG into an internal SCO organization.

Hey, we’re all revisionists now, right Larry? Speaking at a SunSoft Inc sales conference, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was asked his views on Apple Computer Inc; Ellison crossed himself and said the last thing Apple needed was more control to compete. He said they had great folks but terrible new management. Of their new CEO – and of ex-IBMer Ellen Hancock in particular being added to the executive roster – he believed he was quoting Winston Churchill speaking of the British Army fighting against the Ottoman Empire in WW1 by saying They were Lions led by Monkeys. It was Donkeys, Larry, not monkeys and Churchill would never have said that about the officer class of which he was a member. It is generally attributed to Germany’s Field Marshall Ludendorff, though others believe it was General Hoffmann having a laugh with Ludendorff who though it such a good quote he’d steal it for himself. But the donkeys won in the end anyway. Will it be the same in the trenches of Silicon Valley? Not many think so.