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Oracle Businesses Cloud Google Software

Zoom Taps Oracle For Cloud Deal, Passing Over Amazon, Microsoft (cnbc.com) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the I-choose-you dept.
Zoom selected Oracle to expand its cloud on Tuesday, bypassing major cloud leaders Amazon Web Services, Alphabet's Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft's Azure Cloud. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. CNBC reports: "We recently experienced the most significant growth our business has ever seen, requiring massive increases in our service capacity. We explored multiple platforms, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was instrumental in helping us quickly scale our capacity and meet the needs of our new users," Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in a press release. "We chose Oracle Cloud Infrastructure because of its industry-leading security, outstanding performance and unmatched level of support."

Zoom already uses Amazon and Microsoft's cloud services, but went with Oracle for its latest expansion. Oracle founder and chairman Larry Ellison praised Zoom earlier this month, calling it an "essential service" during the coronavirus pandemic. Oracle said in a release that Zoom chose its service for Oracle's "advantages in performance, scalability, reliability and superior cloud security." It's a surprising move from Zoom, as it chose Oracle over its larger competitors. According to research firm Canalys, Amazon had the largest cloud market share at the end of 2019 with 32.4%, followed by Microsoft, with 17.6%, and Google, with 6%.
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Zoom Taps Oracle For Cloud Deal, Passing Over Amazon, Microsoft More

Zoom Taps Oracle For Cloud Deal, Passing Over Amazon, Microsoft

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  • Two companies that go together like (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @05:23PM (#60001810)

    Hitler and Mussolini. /s

    I'd guess Oracle is probably going to soon announce they're purchasing Zoom for some random billions of dollars.

    Probably after hosting Zoom for long enough to generate the funds to buy them.

  • Is it time to short zoom stock, or should I wait a while for the true horror of the deal to become apparent?

    • Our company uses Zoom regularly for video conferencing, and it seems like Zoom has help up quite well. We've seen very little degradation of service and I don't think any outages.

      Given that Zoom said they've already been leaning on Oracle to scale up, doesn't it seem like it means the deal has already worked out OK?

      I know it's cool to hate Oracle and all, and I would have been dubious myself. But what Zoom is doing seems like proof that Oracle still has some good hardware chops (which I imagine has to be

      • What company would that be?

        Just so I know which one I have to avoid, unless I want some trivially easy hacking practice.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        But what Zoom is doing seems like proof that Oracle still has some good hardware chops (which I imagine has to be based on the remnants of Sun).

        No it's more proof that Zoom doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. From the shoddy security (remote execution in their client), awful privacy, easily guessed meeting codes, and other nonsense it's clear their engineering team went to clown college.

        Going with Oracle which is the Sarlaac Pit of tech companies is just icing on the cake. Did you see the part

        • It almost seems like Zoom is trying to offset their half-assed flighty image, by deciding to go with the biggest, most bureaucratic money-suck of a company that they could find. If that's their goal, then they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

          Could also be that they just fell for the Oracle shiny sales-pitch of "scalable...mumble...future-proof...mumble...mission-critical".

          Damn, stupidity indeed.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by jezwel ( 2451108 )
        We'll use Zoom:

        When forced too by an external company, and
        when we understand anything discussed is essentially published to the entire world.

        thankfully we're large enough that #1 is becoming a near-null event.

        • We'll use Zoom:

          When forced too by an external company, and
          when we understand anything discussed is essentially published to the entire world.

          thankfully we're large enough that #1 is becoming a near-null event.

          Same here. I have some regular meetings with other companies (and the government present). They run on zoom. But they are not secret. If the meeting content was secret, we would refuse to use zoom.
           

  • Poof!! (Score:2)

    by gtall ( 79522 )

    And Zoom disappears into the cloud of Oracle mismanagement. Goodbye Zoom, let us know how it is on the other side.

  • ... by the company of bad decisions.

    Use Jitsie Meet. Be done with it.

    • Re:Another bad decision... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @05:56PM (#60001970)

      Does Jitsi Meet offer the option of remote desktop support/control? Whiteboard sharing? Polling? As far as I can tell, the answers are no, no, and no - it offers basic desktop sharing, that's about it's only "extra".

      Not everyone is just using Zoom (or Teams, for that matter) to simply insert their voice and face in a meeting.

      Seriously, though, correct me if I'm wrong. Having more options is always good.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kbahey ( 102895 )

        Does Jitsi Meet offer the option of remote desktop support/control? Whiteboard sharing? Polling? As far as I can tell, the answers are no, no, and no - it offers basic desktop sharing, that's about it's only "extra".

        Not everyone is just using Zoom (or Teams, for that matter) to simply insert their voice and face in a meeting.

        Seriously, though, correct me if I'm wrong. Having more options is always good.

        Our local LUG (remember those?) tested a self hosted Jitsi, and it was CPU intensive for meeting participa

      • Does Jitsi Meet offer the option of remote desktop support/control? Whiteboard sharing? Polling? As far as I can tell, the answers are no, no, and no - it offers basic desktop sharing, that's about it's only "extra"

        Just share your desktop and run a shared doodle or freaking google spreadsheet. o_O

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by chrish ( 4714 )

      I keep hearing people say "use Jitsie!" Have you actually tried it? In comparison to Zoom, it's terrible, like some ancient version of Skype.

      We tried it with two users, between Linux and Mac. There was so much input echo you could barely hear the other person talk. I can't imagine how bad it would be for a dozen people (or the ~30-ish we have sometimes).

      I keep meaning to look into Big Blue Button for internal meetings (it's got a nice integration with Mattermost), but I've been sort of turned off by their

  • If they are using many different providers, is it safe to assume that they are basically just spinning up machine images on demand?
    I never quite understood whats so great about this usage of "the cloud" - it's just some VPS machines booting up.

  • When Zoom users start getting letters from Oracle's demanding licence payments.

  • I know why (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @05:55PM (#60001966)
    Oracle pushed super hard to get any sort of cloud business from my company. The final offer was essentially free enterprise oracle and instance/storage/network costs about 1/4 what AWS asks. (Network was free).

    Zoom likely got at least a good a deal, probably better. And since they can't assume they'll retain 300m extra users long term, they probably see this as a super cheap temporary solution to handle the additional load.

    Once everyone goes back to work, Zoom usage will drop 80%, they'll shut down Oracle cloud and Oracle will advertise how Zoom came to them because of their security, blah blah blah, see this quote from Zoom CTO.

    Oracle already has spare capacity since no one uses them so everyone is a winner.

    Good call for both companies.

    • they'll shut down Oracle cloud and Oracle will advertise how Zoom came to them

      Ahahahhaha, no. Hang on, let me wipe the tears out of my eyes and wipe the snot from my nose off on the dog..

      Okay. Now. Try this quote on for just one of many examples of how Oracle operates. They're gangsters, and you don't just walk away, even if the first one was free.

      First, Oracle allegedly took away the client’s "Red Keys." The Red Keys contain the software code that Micros customers can use to upgrade their systems. These are keys that A&E says they paid for. Copies of contracts are attached to the end of the complaint. According to the complaint "Oracle, however, has advised Plaintiffs that — despite the express licenses granted by the Micros Sales Contracts...it is Oracle’s position that Plaintiffs lack valid licenses."

      • Oh absolutely, I totally agree with you about Oracle. We didn't go with them. Price wasn't even the main issue. In this case, though, if Zoom is using them as nothing but spare capacity for generic ephemeral video servers (or whatever it is Zoom needs to expand capacity) and bandwidth then Oracle turning them off later is no big deal. Unlikely Oracle will do anything too stupid for at least a few months and with various states and regions already saying fuck it let's open, they may not need Oracle for l

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

        ...Okay. Now. Try this quote on for just one of many examples of how Oracle operates. They're gangsters, and you don't just walk away, even if the first one was free.

        Sort of like the database world. We're not going to use Oracle POS. FU.. We're using Postgres or Mysql... or other stuff. Oracle - ok boys, buy postgres, mysql, other...
        Here we are again. {Oracle} Do you want to use Oracle? {Customer} No, FU... We're using Postgres...(or something else) {Oracle} Glad to have your business. Everyone - 'DOH!

  • If they ever manage to get Oracle cloud off the ground of course..
  • Starting in Q3, Zoom will charge you on how many people might have attended your webinar.

  • Bandwidth pricing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @06:38PM (#60002150)

    My guess is that Oracle gave them free (or nearly free) egress bandwidth -- for a company whose main product is a huge bandwidth consumer, AWS's $0.10/GB and Azure's $0.08/GB bandwidth fees really add up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Average ( 648 )

      AWS book rate for egress is $0.05/GB at highest-scale, and it's negotiable once you're at the 300+ TB/month club. Netflix / DockerHub / Dropbox / etc are not paying book rate egress. Still, saving egress would be very appealing to Zoom.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawguy ( 1600213 )

        Yes, they all have volume discounts, but my point remains the same. Amazon in particular seems reluctant to provide significant discounts on bandwidth.

        • Yes, they all have volume discounts, but my point remains the same. Amazon in particular seems reluctant to provide significant discounts on bandwidth.

          Appear to give the vacation rental away and never make it cheap to leave.

  • yeah right lol (Score:5, Informative)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @06:42PM (#60002164)
    LOL ""advantages in performance, scalability, reliability and superior cloud security." nobody and I mean NOBODY chooses Oracle cloud for that. Bet it was purely price or some other backroom deal. All of the other 3 beat Oracle in every single one of those metrics.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ksw_92 ( 5249207 )

      How many are now wondering what ties to Oracle the "security" consulting firm Zoom recently hired to address the PR (and technical) issues around their platform?

      Of course, with the Zoom founder coming from Cisco's WebEx division I expect that he's quite comfortable around the vicious "tux-and-fux" crowd...

  • My guess shortly after the pandemic is over and Zoom no longer needs the extra capacity. Oracle will then jack up the rates, zoom will go back to the other guys, and the lawsuit will begin.

  • A match made in fuckface heaven.

  • Zoom superior cloud security, and the state security apparatus don't have access to all your videos.
  • Sorry Zoom, you got your expansion from the COVID-19 outbreak. It'll be mostly contraction from here on out as other tools replicate your functions and the number of users depletes. Oh and you were foolish enough to sign a contract with Oracle so expect to be fucked over there too.

  • I don't know any details about what services they run with what provider, but consider:
    - The article says they already do business with Amazon and Microsoft.
    - Now they are adding a third provider (Oracle).

    As long as they do not fall into the trap of becoming reliant on any particular vendor's infrastructure, they should be in an excellent position to negotiate when they end up scaling back operations.

    "Oh, by the way, since out loads have dropped, we'll be ending our relationship with one of you. We already

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