Slow Oracle Merger Leads To Outflow of Sun Projects, Coders 409
An anonymous reader writes "Sun Microsystems might have had a chance if the Oracle merger had gone through quickly, but between the DoJ taking its time and the European Commission, which seems to get off on abusing American firms, just plain dragging its feet, that won't happen now. As Sun twists in the wind, unable to defend itself, and Oracle is unable to do anything until the deal closes, IBM is pretty much tearing Sun to shreds. By the time this deal closes, there won't be much left for Oracle. This is not how a Silicon Valley legend should end."
Why should America be above the law? (Score:2, Insightful)
Kind of like how the USA seems to "get off" on taking down middle eastern fundamentalists and strong men.
FUD article (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid article - so three coders (JRuby team) quit, and Sun's losing in sales to IBM (which they were doing anyway before the merger).
Re:FUD article (Score:5, Interesting)
Over the past year we've been looking at enterprise level database platforms. PostgreSQL served us well in development and initial stages of production. Initial consideration was given to SUN, IBM, and Teradata. But it was clear a year ago that SUN's days were numbered. After they started talks with IBM we didn't give SUN much thought after that. Also they lacked a true enterprise level database (sorry MySQL fans, but NDBCLUSTER is still horribly buggy and what we need goes beyond Master/salve replication) & hardware platform and we wanted both from the same vender. Sorry, but I've been in the "It's a hardware problem, no it's a software problem" disputes between venders too many times.
I know a lot of other businesses who thought the same way once the talks were underway with IBM. Why buy a platform that you don't the future of 6 months from now?
Which is sort of sad. I worked around Sun machines 12 years ago. We had a few boxes that were from the 1980's running Solaris 2 (or 3 I can't remember now) that were STILL supported. Something went wrong, they sent in the old grey beards to fix it. Same with applications. We had a certified app that broke in Solaris 8 or 9 and Sun sent a team of engineers to help us fix it.
Re:FUD article (Score:5, Insightful)
logic (Score:4, Interesting)
more FUD about EU (Score:3, Insightful)
and the European Commission, which seems to get off on abusing American firms
In what way is the European Commission "abusing American firms"? Seems to me they are doing exactly what a regulatory authority for a big market like the EU should do, and they are regulating European firms just as much as American firms.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For not to mention very biased. The European Union is doing its job here, unlike the US authorities who simply cut short the investigation and accepted the merger due to plunging profits in SUN. There is real issues here: Java is the most dominant development tool not only for Oracle but SAP and IBM and so on. Just because SUN is failing does not reduce this threat. This is the only time the government has a chance at setting requirements for preventing unfair competition.
Re:FUD article (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you are unaware that IBM is primarily a services company nowadays?
The hardware and software is a tool to sell services.
You know that's where Oracle is aiming for growth too, right?
For all the advantages you see for Solaris over its competition, IBM's service offering is miles ahead of Oracle right now...
Re:FUD article (Score:5, Insightful)
At the fortune 100 companies I've worked with, AIX was legacy and stagnant, and being retired as quickly as possible. Solaris was losing servers to Linux starting with the web/application servers and moving into the Database space (replacing Oracle and DB2, in some cases with Mysql for smaller databases). Applications that could be run on virtualization were the next big thing to move to Linux. If they could replace large sun boxes (and expensive sun hardware/software service contracts) with a bunch of 1Us or Blades connected to a SAN, it was done.
At one financial institution it was even mandated that Linux be tested before any other Unix because of the cost savings.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I will disclose that I am a three-time ex-Sun employee/contractor who has also seen inside the belly of IBM. Solaris will bury AIX. And you can take *that* to the SAN and store it!
I can appreciate your perspective, but seems to me that AIX is ingrained in a lot of places for the foreseeable future. Remember when IBM pulled AIX c.2001 and replaced it with linux, and the admins in the trenches bitched and moaned? They brought AIX back real quick. IBM has some incredible talent still building AIX, and its still and has been 4ever a solid stable platform. Maybe linux has caught up (ok, its probably caught up), but I doubt AIX admins would seriously consider it an alternative. Solaris is
Re:FUD article (Score:5, Informative)
Hello,
Initial "disclaimer", I work in IBM. I'll try however to be balanced, especially since I'm more interested in clarifying a few points than in engaging in some sort of competitive bashing.
For the record though I'll say that I like Solaris and business imperatives apart Sun is/was a company that interested me.
IBM's offerings with their overpriced hardward,
Really depends on how you do the math. Individual systems can be more expensive, but then again they generally do a lot more in terms of processing power. Of course, "processing power" can be again measured in multiple ways, which is why you'll find a lot of contradicting information. One thing to bear in mind though is that, for example, the IBM Power Blades are quite competitive, being similarly priced as the ix86 ones. The higher you go in terms of vertical capacity of growth, the pricier it is, but that's the same in all vendors.
ancient lineage
I'm not sure what you're intending to say here, most Unix vendors have an ancient lineage (Solaris itself is a BSD/System V mix, a bit like AIX). If you're referring to a supposed lack of innovation, well, POWER6 still has the edge in terms of processing power and POWER7 is just around the corner (IBM won the DARPA bid against Sun btw). AIX 6 introduces a lot of new stuff which you are probably not aware. I'm not sure how is the Sun situation in terms of chip manufacturing. I know about the highly threaded CPUs, etc, I am just commenting on the possible perception that looms in the air with the Oracle acquisition.
how about a free x86 version, IBM? no, then fuck off!
While I understand that it would be interesting in general terms, it doesn't matter in terms of judging the fitness of the OS for the market we are talking about.
After that, I have a hard time figuring out why anyone would favor IBM's LPARs over the much more efficient, and easier to manager Solaris 10 Zone offering.
They are quite different concepts though.... a LPAR is for most purposes a separate server, with a level of isolation that exceeds Solaris zones. They don't even compete in the same area. A critical problem in the Solaris kernel that is supports 10 Containers will mean death to all of them (correct me if I'm wrong). You can do whatever you want to an LPAR that it won't affect any other LPAR. This with the added benefict of dedicated OR shared hardware, dynamic CPU and RAM entitlement via policies, etc, etc. It behaves a bit like z/VM.
The only comparison with Solaris zones are WPARs, Workload Partitions, introduced with AIX 6. They share a global kernel and behave in a similar way to Solaris Containers, give or take. They are lighter in terms of creation, etc, but with less isolation. I'm sure that there are arguments pro and against each of them, but in terms of use they can be compared. Not so with LPARs.
Don't get me started on HP
HP-UX is a solid UNIX OS. Of course, it isn't as "sexy" as Solaris (like AIX also isn't I guess), but again what matters for most is if it's stable and manageable. HP also has different virtualisation offerings (nPars, which work at the physical level a bit like Sun Domains IIRC, vPars which are lighter weight and share the same hardware, IVM which is sort of like VMware in Itaniu, etc). I always was an admirer of the Alpha architecture, and respected PA-RISC. In personal terms I don't especially like Itanium, *but* this is a personal thing.
Ever heard of ZFS or DTrace?
Quite interesting features. I especially like DTrace.
I will disclose that I am a three-time ex-Sun employee/contractor who has also seen inside the belly of IBM. Solaris will bury AIX. And you can take *that* to the SAN and store it!
Well, we're both a product of our surroundings I guess :) I disagree that Solaris will "bury" AIX of course. You might enjoy Solaris more - that's quite reasonable - but in the end this things are more about the business sense they make than anything else (and I'm not saying that Solaris doesn't make business sense).
Not news, is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I've been through 3 M&As they are _NOT_ fun.
However, there is a period of time in each one where you can better your situation appreciably as long as you approach the situation properly (how this is I hold as a trade secret).
So far I quit one job as a result of merger, bettered my situation as a result of the second (quite well), and then for the third I was cut and re-hired ?!? by the parent company, all without separating my employment with them (new, better yet, job though).
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not how a Silicon Valley legend should end.
How should they end?
Spectacular bankruptcy like Enron?
Seems like most in silicon valley do a slow fade into oblivion and are eventually acquired for peanuts and never heard from again. 3DO, Transmeta, Borland, Quarterdeck, SGI, etc...
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
How should they end?
#shutdown -h now
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
That wouldn't end a sun box
shutdown -i5 -g0 -y
Re: (Score:2)
killall would (I'm told) end a Sun box.
(According to a sysadmin who walked past my screen at uni and saw me typing "killall firefox" on GNU/Linux, and made me promise to use "pkill firefox" from then on.)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
"sync; sync; halt" works for immediate stoppage at minimal risk to your filesystem compared to many other options.
Or just "stop-A", "sync", and leave it hanging at the OK prompt forever :) This has the benefit of a subsequent tech being able to power up again remotely, which just pulling the power cord wouldn't...
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
That wouldn't end a sun box
It will if the Sun box is running Linux :D
But my post would have been funnier with the Solaris syntax. For my oversight I should be spanked by Jen from The IT Crowd.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, SGI may have died, but nVidia and Mozilla (to name only two) are doing quite well, thanks.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Engineers need interesting work and great colleagues. Without those things, the great engineers will bail and a vicious downward spiral will begin. This is why I am never surprised when government sponsored information system re-writes spend millions of dollars and never finish (California DMV).
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
We weren't in Silicon Valley, but our company ended like this: By 1999 we had grown to two offices and about 70 employees, had an award winning retail product and an online mall. We we're still private. After about 5 unsuccessful tries at getting VC, a Canadian company who processed credit card payments offered to buy us for ~$43M USD. They wanted our mall, so that they could make money in about 6 different ways from it. When the sale was announced but not complete, my stock was worth about $1.8M at their current stock price :) Unfortunately, they missed the point that our retail software was what generated the stores in the mall. As soon as the sale went through in 2000, they stopped development and sales of the retail product, laid off about 30% of us, and then gave the remaining people really stupid things to do for about a year while they slowly figured out what went wrong. At this point I was worth about $800K. :| For 6 months all I did was get paid >$100K/yr to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and surf the web. Eventually there was a meeting at which they admitted that their business and our business (now basically dead) were irreconcilably different, and announced they were shutting down all US operations. I was on the street Jan 1, 2001, and my stock was now worth $1200 :( Incredibly, when a group of us that had worked on the retail product approached them asking if we could retain the source, trademarks, remaining stock, etc., with the intent of reviving it, we were told that they would never allow us to do this because it "would look bad to the stockholders". As if blowing $43M didn't look bad enough? D'oh!!
Blaming the Govt. Strawman (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mod parent up. The OP is light on facts and heavy on interpretation. Non-story.
Re:Blaming the Govt. Strawman (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the talent leaving, that happens in any merger because, once again, people hate uncertainty. If someone is facing a lot of uncertainty in his job, and has the ability to go elsewhere, he will probably do so. Ironically, the people most likely to move on are often the ones that would have been the most likely to be kept by the new company anyway, since they tend to be the top talent.
Re:Blaming the Govt. Strawman (Score:4, Insightful)
But anyone in that position knows that those assurances aren't worth the air breathed to utter them.
Given today's job market, if you're in an uncertain position, and you get a good offer elsewhere that seems more certain -- you take it.
What happens if the regulators deny the merger application? If you've stuck around, now you're in a lame-duck company and you can see your employer has lost a large portion of your customer base to IBM.
What happens if the merger is accepted? At least now you've got a chance of your employer taking advantage of Oracle's sales & marketing force, etc. That is, if you're not let go as a result of the merger.
In short, employees are leaving Sun because they don't like uncertainty. Never mind the customers leaving Sun for the same reason (amongst other reasons).
The length of time it's taking for the review process is definitely a factor.
That said, I think the review is important, and I hope it's taking so long because of thoroughness, not because of some stupid attempt to hamstring American companies.
Re: (Score:2)
As for talent leaving, the article provides one example of 3 employees who left because they were unsure of Oracle's commitment to their work.
In addition to that example that article also had the most hilarious attempt at making the brain-drain seem significant EVER: "Talent defections are common in acquisitions. Losing the JRuby crew [the three employees in question] isn't quite as bad as losing James Gosling, the creator of Java. He remains firmly with Sun but his departure would be devastating if it did happen."
In other words, "yeah, I know the loss of these guys doesn't seem like a big deal but imagine if someone important left! We're not s
Re: (Score:2)
The decision by the European Commission to extend its investigation into the deal, worth $7.4 million, is especially sensitive because the U.S. Department of Justice has already approved the merger. Regulators in the United States questioned Oracle's market power in some areas of its business but raised fewer concerns than the Europeans about open-source software.
...
In announcing the decision, Neelie Kroes, the European Union's competition commissioner, appeared to signal a different approach Thursday, warning that the acquisition could hamper development of an important software product owned by Sun, which specializes in computer hardware. The product, MySQL, is the most widely used corporate database software in the world, and it competes with products produced by Oracle.
"Europeans still have a lot more concerns than Americans about companies using strong or dominant positions to create a bottlenecks for competitors in the information and technology sectors," said Peter Alexiadis, a partner at the law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who is based in Brussels.
"Any whiff of dominance over different platforms used to deliver information raises particular concerns," he said. "This may in part explain why Europeans, who are used to multiple business traditions, might be less inclined to view Oracleâ(TM)s traditional strengths in databases as not posing competitive concerns."
From E.U. to Review Oracle's Takeover of Sun Microsystems [nytimes.com]
Re:Blaming the Govt. Strawman (Score:4, Interesting)
lulz. That's true of any union. Go look up "softwood lumber," "corn," and "steel," among many, many (many, many, many) other disputes the US is involved in.
Americans don't seem to realize what a "global economy" truly entails.
Re:Blaming the Govt. Strawman (Score:5, Informative)
Americans don't seem to realize what a "global economy" truly entails.
I think you're making an apples to oranges comparison. The average american doesn't know much about business. The average american also doesn't own a business that competes in a global marketplace. A business owner that does compete in a global marketplace is aware of these issues, because s/he must. his/her place of birth doesn't change this.
The European Union's economic policies are designed to benefit business owners in Europe, just as the United States' economic policies are designed to benefit business owners here. Where these interests coincide favorably, there is cooperation (intellectual property, globalization, etc.). Where they do not (monopolies, taxation, etc.) there is not cooperation. Both sides state they strive for "fair", "open", and/or "unbiased" markets, but privately they strive to provide a benefit for their members, which sometimes results in "fair", "open", and "unbiased" markets, and sometimes does not.
The issue here is that the EU is motivated by a need for cultural integrity -- whereas their competition (the United States) does not bring a need for cultural integrity to the negotiation table. The end result is that US businesses are paying for the EU member nations' need for cultural integrity as a condition of competition within the European marketplace. Evaluating the correctness of each position is left as an excercise for the reader.
He's dead, Jim. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not how a Silicon Valley legend should end.
Why not? How, exactly, should a Silicon Valley legend end, like Enron did? Nothing lasts forever.
How, exactly, should a Silicon Valley legend end? (Score:4, Funny)
In a cathartic orgy of violence in the third act, in which everyone dies except the narrator, who is finally revealed to be an obscure character who was shown briefly in the second episode and everyone forgot about in the meantime.
Oh, sorry, I was reading TVTropes.
Two different things (Score:4, Interesting)
There seem to be two points in the article and summary. The one that makes sense is that the slowness of the merger is murdering Sun's business. The other is that the slowness is causing people to leave. I doubt the latter is true. People do not want to work for Oracle, fast merge or slow merge.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The other is that the slowness is causing people to leave. I doubt the latter is true.
Well, I can't speak for anyone else here, but I have to say that the suspense is killing me. Beginning to seriously question whether or not I feel like sticking around for another quarter to find out whether or not the new overlords are interested in what my group is doing.
And then, of course, there's the question of whether or not I want to work for Oracle to begin with. Were I not a wage-slave with mortgage, family, et
Oracle is OK (Score:5, Informative)
My two cents: It doesn't suck to work at Oracle. Pay is fair and above market, benefits are good, employees are treated fairly, and there are a lot of exciting projects going on to choose from as a techie. If you don't like what you're doing for a living, there are numerous opportunities always available in something more suited to your interest, and telecommuting is encouraged in most "talent" positions, so relocation is largely a non-issue. The employees I work with (admittedly, we're a rack-monkey and operating system nerd crowd) are generally optimistic and excited about the merger.
Yes, as part of the M&A process there have been layoffs from time to time. With the exception of hostile takeovers, they are fairly predictable in advance, severance is decent and fair, the door remains open if you decide to rejoin the company later, and as far as a huge Fortune 500 company goes, it's a really decent place to work. If you work in some of the larger locations there are nice benefits on-site for free or at really reduced prices (gyms, cafeterias, massages, to name a few), and there is a lot of employment flexibility.
Of course there are annoyances like paperwork, lengthy project approval processes, ITIL compliance, SOX compliance, and so forth. Welcome to working for any large company. But to say "People do not want to work for Oracle, fast merge or slow merge" is simply false. By and large, it's a good company to work for, and the low turnover rate and lengthy average employment time amongst extremely talented and well-educated people speaks to overall job satisfaction.
Re:Oracle is OK (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The large apps on the internet are all moving away from RDBMS and into scalable key value stores.
And when those who've migrated discover in a few years that they can no longer manage their data in any meaningful fashion, they'll re-invent the wheel, give it a shiny new name, and waste cubic miles of breath denying that this is what they've done.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The applications moving to "key value stores" are not the oracle crowd. They're the MySQL crowd.
Oracle has more to fear from PostgreSQL then they do key-value stores. And they still have the upper hand there in terms of support for quite a while.
Re:Oracle is OK (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever try to do GIS in a key-value store? Statistical analysis? Data mining? Billing?
Key value stores are great for high throughput applications that have very simple and predictable access modes. But for anything else, you are much better of with a RDBMS.
The front line customer apps is not where the money is. It never was, and it never will.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oracle is OK (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't being an Oracle employee, it's being an Oracle customer. That seems to be a seriously negative experience for a lot of people.
Well, that at least is good news... (Score:2)
Hopefully more projects and coders will leave Sun before they get absorbed into Oracle, the industry's largest pool of promising, stagnating technology.
IBM strategy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IBM strategy (Score:4, Informative)
You're blatantly wrong here. The reason the IBM - SUN merger didn't go through is because SUN walked away from the deal.
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3813841/ [internetnews.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They cannot close source MariaDB, Drizzle, etc.
Ah, the names. They sure do inspire confidence in the enterprise space, I gotta say.
Re: (Score:3)
So, MySQL is/was more than a bunch of code files that can be forked, it's a real company that started to make a dent in the database market, driving cost down for customers of such products, and producing incentive for both Oracle and MS to lower the prices of their products/enh
What's EC got to do with it? (Score:2)
I'm just a little confused. How can the European Commission block the merger of two US firms? I can see why the FTC would be an issue, but once the US regulators are happy, how does the EC have *any say* in this at all? This seems like a really screwy thing - what's next - for any two companies to merge, they need the permission of EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH?
I suppose, what it comes down to is, those two need EC permission to have offices/do business in the EU, right? The way I see it, if this article is right
Re:What's EC got to do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
How can the European Commission block the merger of two US firms?
The short answer is that they can't. The companies are free to go ahead and merge without receiving EU permission. They are also free to not sell anything in the EU or be fined heavily if they attempt to do so. I doubt that Oracle wants to give up this lucrative market.
Why do so many of my fellow Americans have trouble understanding this? Are you dense? Governments do this sort of thing. They actually want to have a say about what gets sold in their countries and by whom. And, frankly, what you think of the practice is irrelevant, unless you can get enough people to agree to convince our government to negotiate a treaty or declare war, since you have no voice in any government but that of the US. Suck it up...
Sovereignty. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
"Why do so many of my fellow Americans have trouble understanding this? Are you dense? Governments do this sort of thing. They actually want to have a say about what gets sold in their countries and by whom."
Yes, yes, that's all fine and good. However, seems to me that something like a merger of two foreign companies who both happen to do business in your country is rather a bit out of the purview of *another* country's authority.
"since you have no voice in any government but that of the US."
And why should
Re:Sovereignty. . . (Score:4, Informative)
They don't need foreign approval to merge.
What they need to know is whether they'll be allowed to sell their products and services in that very large foreign market if they do merge.
The confusion, I think, is because it's a kind of mental shorthand to think of it as merger approval, when that is not actually what is under consideration right now.
I hope this clears it up a bit for you. There's no question of sovereignty here. There's only a question of money -- Oracle shareholders would not approve the merger if the EU would not allow merged company to conduct business there, since they'd lose billions.
jruby (Score:2)
If all of Sun's JRuby developers left to work for Engine Yard, what possible impact might this have on the JRuby project? Will Sun continue to support JRuby development? Does this decrease the chances of Ruby someday becoming a mainstream part of Java?
I'm ahead of the game (Score:2)
I sold my Sun workstation on CraigsList before this news hit
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
but ever since the rise of Linux as a viable alternative to Unix, Sun has been floundering about looking for a viable business model.
That wasn't it. Sun's failures have less to do with linux and probably more to do with marketing taking over the company and messing with the expensive, but rock solid, hardware their clients came to trust -- and replacing them with cheaper variants. When they did this they gambled their niche for larger margins, and they lost. The "rise of Linux" wouldn't even make it as a footnote in the story of the fall of Sun. Linux may have been on servers 10 years ago, but these installations were a joke compared to AIX and Solaris installations at the time. Only in the last few years has linux even come within striking distance of AIX and Solaris... and no, Linux has not yet surpassed what serious admins have come to expect from AIX and Solaris afa uptimes, i.e. staying up under heavy crushing loads.
Solaris v Linux, and the role of SPARC (Score:4, Insightful)
the Cult of the CEO, Olsen & McNealy
transfer control from Engineering to Marketing
getting into, and spending lots of money on, fights that are Just not Worth Winning, JAVA
SUN grew, and outpaced Apollo (domain) HP and the when HP bought Apollo's market share, both again.
But it did not take long for in-fighting and huberis to set in and bring SUN to where they are today,
so that Oracle is today's Compaq.
Oracle will kill both the SPARC and Java track as they exist today as neither can be monetized. It will be
very intersting if Java can succeeed on its merits, I hope not, Python is a far nicer language.
SO basically (Score:3, Insightful)
Three ex-sun developers didn't have Oracle kiss their rears and so they left and tried to get a little hype for themselves by saying their former masters are dying. Regardless of whether or not its true, the whole way they tried to get some press is pathetic. If they want to make news, make a product release with cool features.
Forget about the EU - This is Capitalism! (Score:3, Interesting)
Say what? (Score:5, Informative)
It's almost fitting considering how some of Sun's best customers were left out in the cold with bad CPUs and RAM, while Sun lawyers (waving signed NDAs in hand) were more prevelent than Sun Support engineers. Remember all the press about that? What, you don't? It's because it was silenced by Sun.
Re:Say what? (Score:4, Interesting)
My experience working in Sun Services, taking care of Gold and Platinium level customers...
The ECC fiasco with the Blackbirds and following revisions was the bookcase example of how not to treat your customers. Customers were lied to, then lied to some more, then received defective pulls as replacement after 2 errors on the same CPU, then lied some more. Until the scrubber patch got released, my average customer had 2 CPU swaps per week.
Receiving defective pulls for customers was the norm rather than the exception... sometimes the customer's own defective parts from the previous intervention, RMA box still sealed but with a "tested OK" sticker magically applied on top of the red "DEFECTIVE" sticker. This applied to disks, memory, CPUs, motherboards... all parts really. Making things worse, the standard procedure was to have the parts delivered directly at the customer... so the engineer didn't get a chance to check for DOAs beforehand.
In the end, the only trick was to order a batch of replacement parts in the hope of having a working one delivered at the customer. Said trick would of course end up damaging your score for the next evaluation... but so would an unsatisfied customer lodging a complaint for substandard support. I gave up, moved to Professional Services then to Pre-sales before leaving.
Nice bit of jingoism there... (Score:5, Insightful)
..the European Commission, which seems to get off on abusing American firms...
Oh, horseshit. I've worked in American companies with European offices for years and have seen no such thing. Europeans are just as happy to take American dollars as anyone else. The EC countries do, however, have rather more stringent antitrust laws than the United States (and more consumer protections, more privacy laws, and so on). If you do business in a country, you have to respect their laws, just as European countries doing business in the US have to respect our laws (or our lawlessness in many matters). That Microsoft and Oracle -- two companies that are hardly well-loved here -- have had trouble in Europe hardly constitutes a pattern of "abusing American firms".
It may be that the real issue here is that Oracle, like Microsoft, gets off on anti-competitive practices, and as a result often finds itself up against laws against the same, in Europe as well as the US.
IBM tearing Sun to shreds (Score:4, Insightful)
I read the 'tearing sun to shreds' article and it sure was exaggerated.
The article title is "Defections Batter Sun Micro.".....whatever. Three jruby developers left, and they didn't go to IBM.
Next the article talks about 170 sun customers going to IBM. And then mentions that none of Sun's big customers have switched to IBM. I wasn't able to find the total Sun customer count...but I'll take a guess and say that 170 is less than 1% of their total.
I know that Sungard.com's Luminis portal for higher ed is mostly installed on Solaris, and there are 75+ installations of that one application alone. One app (Luminis), for one business type (Edu), is nearly half of this "massive exodus" away from Sun.... give me a break hehe.
The New York Times (Score:4, Informative)
The New York Times says:
Another issue that may have led the Europeans to take more time over the case is the way that Oracle has handled regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.
Oracle notified E.U. regulators of its deal in late July, more than two months after it had informed U.S. officials.
European merger watchdogs can take a dim view if companies spread out their notifications between jurisdictions over long periods of time, and they have said in the past that such tactics might be designed to pressure the Europeans to give the green light to takeovers already approved in the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/technology/companies/04oracle.html?_r=1&hp
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps, it's just that the European Commission is just slightly less beholden to corporations than their counterparts in the US.
As far as I can tell their slowness to sign on to other corporatist things coming from the US has been a pretty good thing.
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe, just maybe, this is just a bargaining chip in the under-the-table schmoozing between US and EU that you and I will never know about.
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:5, Funny)
You lose your geek card, please hand it over.
NEVER misquote Yoda.
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:5, Funny)
Misquoting Yoda cry baby Jesus makes.
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot user 1049312 tells Slashdot user 926 to hand in his geek card. I never thought I'd see the day.
Although really, the correct syntax is "Geek card you lose. Hand it over you must."
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
As far as I can tell their slowness to sign on to other corporatist things coming from the US has been a pretty good thing.
Too bad that when it really counted, they bent over and presented their constituents' anuses to have their privacy violated by the US feds.
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:4, Informative)
If they didn't care about selling in Europe they could just ignore them and cease operations there. I don't see it being worth it to either oracle or sun for that to happen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't have any obligations outside the US whatsoever, of course. Until they want to do business in the biggest economy of the world. Then they have to play by their rules.
I really don't understand how this is so hard to fathom - the biggest market in the world is not something a business like Oracle can ignore, even if they share your misguided xenophobia.
BTW, movie industries sell regionally because they can make more that way, not less.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure others with more familiarity with EU politics could name other examples.
There are examples both ways; for example, the Volvo/Scania merger that was rejected. European companies get their fair share of spankings, and I haven't seen any exceedingly obvious bias, just a bit more commitment to the 'competition' part of the free market. That in itself might create an appearance of a bias if US companies have a stronger desire to grow to larger market share through acquisitions, but it might not be a ref
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:4, Informative)
But they only act that way towards foreign countries.
FACTBOX-EU slaps 1.1 bln euro fine on E.ON, GDF Suez [finanznachrichten.de]
Really? Got any evidence? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evidence in the form of the number of actions taken against American firms, as opposed to actions taken against European firms would really help make your case. For bonus points, show that American firms don't actually deserve the 'abuse' by committing more crimes than their European counterparts. Without some sort of evidence, your post is simply pro-American, anti-European jingoism. Probably boiling down to either 'Capitalism GOOD, socialism BAD!' or simple flag waving nationalism, rather than any kind of
Re:Really? Got any evidence? (Score:4, Informative)
Compare that to fines levied against European companies and you will see that there is no difference. You were flagged troll for your content-free angry pro-American karma pandering. You thought you'd get a quick karma boost from anti-socialist, libertarian, and pro-American moderators, which you may yet get if you stop whining and present some actual facts. Cherry-picked anecdotes don't count, give us some figures to back up your butt-hurt position.
Re:Really? Got any evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are trying to make your case by presenting one side. You've shown absolutely nothing to prove that the EU does not do the same thing to EU companies. You have also not shown that the US companies did not deserve the criminal and civil sanctions they received.
Oh, and Boeing doesn't need Airbus flight software, Boeing's is better. Yet we don't see Boeing getting hit by the EU.
Just out of curiosity, your citations are so one sided, where are you getting your data from? Does Fox News have a Two Minute Hate spot on the nasty socialist EU nowadays?
Re:Really? Got any evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
But $1.5B is in proportion to the fines given to some European companies. (And EU companies are fined by the EU, but it doesn't make the news in the USA.)
(PS Post in ~4 hours when all us Europeans are asleep, and the Americans will mod you up.)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
$1.5B is only 1% of their net worth. Their actions have probably damaged the consumer market. Anything less and it's like fining a billionaire $100 for running a stop sign. The same issues exists with MS. The US could have put a stop to some of their actions. However, US regulators just turn a blind eye and look at where we are now.
Re:Really? Got any evidence? (Score:5, Informative)
So? The EC fined Telefónica (a spanish telco) with 150 millions. And the fined EON (german) and GDF (french) with 550 millions each one for being a cartel. And the fined 11 european and japanese companies with 750 millions (including 330 millions for siemens, which is german).
And in my opinion, the EC is just doing what EEUU should do but doesn't.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Really? Got any evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Shipping WMP with Windows was a crime, as was not providing a browser choice tool. Anti-competitive actions taken by a monopoly are a crime in most jurisdictions. The EU has gone after plenty of European companies for the same things.
Your post is yet more fact free jingoism.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To cite Microsoft alone, was shipping Windows Media Player with Windows a crime?
Erm.. yes, it might have been, but Microsoft settled out of court [washingtonpost.com] - the court in San Jose that is. I guess that makes it not a crime, technically.
How much did MS have to pay out to other American companies, $4.6bn last time I looked. So the fact that the EU got involved with dodgy dealings by Microsoft isn't really without cause, and isn't somehow anti-American.
As for Intel.. they've never been sued by any American company for [wikinews.org]
Re:European Commission SUCKS (Score:5, Informative)
You could argue that in-depth oversight hurts businesses, but it's a common fallacy here to attribute it to Anti-Americanism, even though there's ample evidence that European and Asian country are often hit just as harshly as American ones. See for example the then-highest cartel fine [glassonweb.com] against countries from Belgium, the UK and Japan.
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, are you saying American businesses are too stupid to avoid bad business situations? You make it sound as if you think of Europe as our enemy, rather than our staunchest allies. I mean, how DARE they provide better health care for less money than we do and make our capitalist health care system look bad? How DARE they get 32 hour work weeks with minimum one month of vacation. Here we are, working our asses off, and we aren't any happier than them for it. The bottom 80% of our society aren't any richer for it, either. That's just not fair, and obviously, they are evil for not fellating their owning class like we do. Why, if they aren't stopped, our peasantry might just get uppity ideas on their heads and start thinking they should get a share in our increase in GDP.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Informative)
I'll take it [photius.com]. At least if it's France (#1), Italy (#2), Belgium (#21), or really anywhere better than the US (#37). Forget the talk show "rah rah rah U-S-A U-S-A" nonsense. If you think the US health care system is legitimately "the best", tell me by which measure.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
US health care system is fine. The US health insurance system sucks balls though.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not really fine. Well, sort of. The health care system has major problems because no one can really afford it without insurance. In fact, if you try and purchase medical care, the hospital will charge you more than they would charge an insurance company.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The mere fact that health care is treated as a commodity that can be bought and sold for a given price rather than as a necessary service is a rather fundamental part of the problem with our health care system. The insurance companies shouldn't get special deals. They should have to pay what I would pay walking in off the street, or more to the point, hospitals should be required by law to give everyone the same deal as the lowest price they give to any insurance provider. That one tiny change would solv
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know how this became about health care, but considering the cost and quality improvements in every other industry that doesn't have governments' thumb on the scales, I think you should rethink your objection to health care as a commodity. Commodities by definition, have the price approach the marginal cost over time.
Heck, even food, which does have a good deal of governmental interference works very well using a commodity model. The poor in the US have a much larger problem with obesity than starvation.
Now, if you can tell us the reason why veterinary medicine is so much cheaper than human medicine for the same procedures and medications, you've got a start for telling us ways to improve the current situation.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
By massive corporate profits, of course.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Informative)
If you think the US health care system is legitimately "the best", tell me by which measure.
People throw that study number around without actually understanding what was going on. Let me explain a bit about that study, then you can decide if you think you want to continue using the study as evidence of anything.
I've written down the criteria in this form-
Criterion (weighting %) : US Ranking, explanation.
Health Level (25%): 24
This is primarily ranking based on life expectancy.
Health Distribution (25%): 32
This is primarily based on child survival rates vs. wealth. You get a bad score if poor kids die while rich kids live.
Responsiveness Level (12.5%): 1
This is based on a survey of health care users about choice of doctor, access to care, quality of care, and outcomes. Generally, when people think about whether they have a "good" health care system or not, these are the criteria they are generally talking about. US ranked 1, Switzerland 2, Luxembourg 3, and Denmark 4.
Responsiveness Distribution (12.5%): 3-38
This looks at the scores of responsiveness above, and cubes the mathematical difference between responsiveness scores of disadvantaged groups vs. all other groups. In this category, the UAE which ranked 30th in responsiveness was ranked number one in distribution of responsiveness. E.G. the disadvantaged got roughly the same care as the advantaged.
Fairness in Financial Contribution (25%): 54-55
Again, measuring the distribution of % of household income going to health care across various economic segments.
Based on this weighting, the aggregate US ranking was 15th. This is the Attainment ranking.
The Performance Ranking is the number you refer to (France 1st, US 37th). It is a calculation which uses a formula much to complicated for me to understand, but essentially they made a model which calculates what they think the life expectancy in the country should be given the expenditures. That is, it's sort of a misnomer- it is not Performance, but Efficiency they are measuring. France scored best because the model created determined that their life expectancy is closest to the theoretical maximum predicted. People (rightly in my opinion) get worked up over this ranking because it's not really based on facts or performance, but actually a prediction of life expectancy. Japan ranks number 1 in the world in life expectancy, but 10th in terms of Efficiency. It doesn't make much sense.
I see several big flaws with this study, but feel free to ignore me if you're looking for ammunition to bash the US health care system:
1) You really have to wonder if life expectancy is the best way to be comparing health care systems. The vast majority of expenditures in the USA are on procedures, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, etc. that are not designed to increase life expectancy. Whether that is the right or not is up for debate, but it does explain why the US scores poorly in efficiency.
2) Distribution of care makes up the bulk of the ranking whereas quality of care and outcomes makes up 12.5%. The US gets bonus points for having the best quality of care when you go to the doctor. We get serious dings for having different quality of care for rich and poor. We also get serious dings for the way our population takes generally poor care of ourselves (smoking, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, etc.). If you think poor care by doctors is the reason for the obesity epidemic, then feel free to believe in this study. Me- I don't know a single person who truly blames doctors or the health care system for our lifestyle choices.
3) This study was done once (in 2000). The methodology was so poorly designed that it wasn't funded again by the WHO. It's not exactly the type of study you want to be throwing around as the definitive ranking on health care systems.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a nice analysis of the study, thanks.
However flawed, having lived in both France and the USA (as well as other countries) I have an opinion of course. I can attest that the level of care in France is pretty good (choice of doctor and general quality of care) as well as easily and cheaply accessible for all. I have a good friend being treated for cancer right now in France, and she is treated completely for free, with the best treatment available in the literature for her condition as far as I have been able to research, even though she is actually not French and currently unemployed. She will continue to get free care until she is cured (which, thank God, looks likely). That is pretty good in my book. This is not a isolated case, this is a policy.
Now in the US I have another friend who went through childbirth in a hospital L.A., a throroughly normal birth took place with zero complication, she spent 3 days in hospital with her baby, and was billed $15k by the hospital and $5k by her gynecologist. Her husband being currently not unemployed, her insurance took most of the bill but she still had a few hundred US$ to pay.
I'm sure everyone have their favourite horror story but here is another one on the US health care. Yet another friend of mine came back to college in Texas (A&M Uni.) from Ivory Coast sick with malaria. The college hospital did not find what was wrong with her. After a few days of very high temperature, she was transfered to Austin, where they suspected everything wrongly and were putting her on the list for liver transplant, until her parents turned up and told the doctors what her condition most likely was. After a few days of a quinine or equivalent regimen she was basically fine again and sent home. However her prolonged stay in hospital blew the ceiling on her insurance and she was left with a debt of many 10s of thousands of US$. With no other rescourse, she went to the TAMU lawyer and sued both hospitals for malpractice. This was settled out of court, and my friend eventually paid nothing, the lawyer worked pro-bono.
OK, these are perhaps anecdotal, but a bit more than that I think. My wife has had two kids in two different countries, neither being the US, and we never had anything to pay for childbirth. I'm pretty sure that if my malaria-affected friend had been treated in most western countries the doctors would have perhaps apologised for their incompetence and certainly refrained from sending her such an outrageous bill. I'm also pretty sure that you have to look far and wide in the US for a hospital that will give you top-level cancer care for free.
There you have in a nutshell why the US health system is poorly ranked. Having the best level of care in the world means nothing if one can't afford it, and if public health policies are driven by greed.
The US people deserve and can afford better.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You missed my favorite: unlike US private insurers, if you get too sick to work and lose your income, and then can no longer afford your insurance premiums precisely when you need them the most, you don't los
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Now, I do wait a bit longer (like maybe 20 minutes rather than 10) in the doctor's waiting room but I much rather do that than paying out the ass.
I rather not test cancer care or major operations in either country but for people that I know that have had operati
relevance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)