Oracle Buying Micros Systems For $5.3 Billion 71
An anonymous reader writes Oracle is buying hospitality and retail technology vendor Micros Systems for $5.3 billion, in a deal that will be its largest since the purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2010. "Oracle said the acquisition will extend its offerings by combining Micros' industry-specific applications with its business applications, technologies and cloud portfolio. Oracle expects the deal to immediately add to its adjusted earnings. Its stock climbed 18 cents to $41 before the market opened. Micros' board unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected to close in the second half of the year."
Gold Finger (Score:5, Funny)
Oracle is like the gold finger, everything they touch turns to gold and dies
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I just have to wonder, honestly, how they're still in business.
They must have a hardcore, resistant-to-change, corporate user base keeping them afloat. Because frankly I don't know anyone in the industry anymore who likes Oracle or wants to do business with them.
(Even the hosting companies I deal with replaced MySQL with MariaDB, behind the scenes. No issues with the changeovers, and better performance.)
Don't misunderstand me: for enterprise-scale users they might have something to offer. B
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From an "enterprise-scale" company, which uses Oracle for their timesheet reporting, let me be the first to inform you that Oracle blows goats. The damn thing crashes if you try to type in text and enter number at the same time. We also have an Oracle database for parts which they've wanted to change for years. YEARS. But switching away is hard and costly and so we limp along with the system we have.
Oracle is where technology goes to die. And those rotting corpses are weighing down corporate America. Oracle
There is a bright side (Score:3)
At least Oracle is cheap.
oh, right.
Bastards. I am sitting here rebalancing my vmware cluster to pull more cores out of Oracle so we can license less. Will it run slower? Yeah. But will we save six or seven figures a year? Yep.
Re: There is a bright side (Score:1)
And may I add..
Do you want Exadata? Because that's how you end up with Exadata.
Re:Gold Finger (Score:4, Insightful)
I just have to wonder, honestly, how they're still in business.
They have arguably the best RDBMS in the business, they have fat stacks of government contracts, and they obviously have an incredibly effective sales team. Seems like they actually have a lot going for them to me, even if they are horrible in every other way. Government customers don't give a shit about software freedom, or any other kind of freedom. Not this government, anyway.
Microsoft, Oracle, IBM rule enterprise software (Score:3)
This article [zdnet.com] may help you understand why Oracle continues to grow (they just surpassed IBM in revenues from enterprise software sales).
To summarise it quickly for you:
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As an ex-employee of Micros' retail division in Solon, Ohio, I can honestly say they do not need the help here. Micros (Retail) is already rotting from the inside out.
I do not expect Oracle coming in to save the day. There has already been too much brain drain and customers are already dropping them as a vendor. Big customers. Think $10 million and larger contracts, poof, like a fart in the wind.
Micros has some really good products,
And, of course ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure this also gets Oracle access to all of that tasty data, which they can monetize, sell, or otherwise mis-handle.
I also predict a lot of smaller businesses getting completely gouged by their new overlords on their licensing costs. What do you mean I need to buy a Solaris server with a 10 year service plan to get to my existing data?
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You don't need to buy Micros to get your hands on that data!
(Hint: Micros has suffered some really bad breaches in the past, basically hanging their customers out to dry.)
Re:And, of course ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmmmm ... so, are customers safer with an incompetent company, or a malicious and greedy company?
It's so hard to keep track these days.
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Compared to Oracle, I'm sure Micros were lightweights when it came to gouging their customers.
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Our Micros install runs a MS SQL DB so I guess they will be changing that for the next version.
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Micros Systems and and Sun Microsystems. If you don't want to get eaten by oracle as it tries to consolidate as people are not longer buying Oracle DB (Too expensive). You better make sure your name isn't like micro systems
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If only you were kidding. I think they call it Exa-Gouge, and ORCL sales weasels sell the shit out of it.
My Oracle Support will be another fun experience for Micros admins.
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I'd go farther: if you're a small business, plan on dumping Micros-anything ASAP. If you can reuse the hardware with someone else's software, great, but that's only an added benefit. Micros is now spoiled goods. Everyone and their mother is doing POS these days, I think it's time it became commoditized as an open source project.
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Let me guess, you have never heard of "PCI compliance" have you?
In other news (Score:2)
"Micros Systems customers all switching to alternative providers"
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"Micros Systems customers all switching to alternative providers"
When Oracle bought the company that produces the software packages I support management was of the opinion "Well... how bad can it really be?"
Now their attitude is "For the love of God find a way to get us out of this contract!"
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A *lot* of folks have switched to MariaDB, (and Postgres), quite some time ago already, and they seem very satisfied with their decision. I'm not hearing about any of their regrets either.
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You weren't running MySQL on Linux before? It doesn't seem like it, so I think I understand one aspect of your migration issues.
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You've got to take the opinions of MySQL/MariaDB uses with a huge grain of salt.
They've already demonstrated very poor database selection skills, now they have to justify their previous mistakes.
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>They've already demonstrated very poor database selection skills, now they have to justify their previous mistakes.
Would you like to substantiate that?
MySQL and MariaDB have worked fine for several years for my POS application. It has always been available.
If I did it again, I might drop SQL databases altogether. There are better ways. But as an SQL database, it has worked as intended. How would a different SQL database work better for my application. I suspect you don't know, because you don't know my
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Whatever your needs, there is a better solution then anything MySQL based.
It is the adjustable crescent wrench of the database world. Wrong tool for all jobs.
A modern DB should not require preventive re-indexing.
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You appear full of FUD. I've never had to preventatively re-index in my life.
Name one of the better solutions.
Amongst the wrong answers would be
1) Postgresql. Permissions management is a pig compared to MySQL
2) Oracle. It costs a lot of money
3) Microsoft Access. My POS runs on Linux.
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You jest but it's happening.... Subway recently dumped them as a POS supplier and will not support any new Micros installs and are hesitant to support older ones. They moved on to HP and Par. We went with Par for what should be obvious reasons for our locations.
Personally, I think Windows-based POS systems are a catastrophe waiting to happen. Doesn't matter who the supplier is, the OS vendor remains the same in most cases.
If Subway ported their POS software to run on top on Linux or BSD I'd be a much hap
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>We went with Par for what should be obvious reasons for our locations.
Not obvious to me. What is it about Par that is better?
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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That's just retail therapy for Larry, seeing as how his bid to buy the Los Angeles Clippers along with David Geffen and Oprah Winfrey was sub-par. He lost out to Steve Ballmer's more baller offer, for LA's long-time underdog team.
Not Microsoft (Score:2)
Strife (Score:2)
Then I hope you don't work for Square Enix [wikipedia.org] or Level-5 [wikipedia.org] or Sony Pictures Animation [wikipedia.org] or for that matter The Weather Channel [weather.com].
On the other hand, you can install an extension for Firefox [mozilla.org] or Chrome [google.com] that will protect you from the "cloud".
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Seems we'll be tipping Larry Ellison every time we check in to a Hilton now.
I think you have this just a little bit backwards.
Got the name wrong (Score:1)
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Isn't it spelled CRAP? Not an acronym, just capitalized for emphasis.
Appropriate image (Score:2)
Can we get a Ferengi photoshopped onto a Borg Cube image in here? Seems appropriate.
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Perhaps they want to kill off SAP's Sybase division once and for all.
I believe that Micros was one of the last big support contracts that Sybase still had. Now that Oracle owns them, you can be pretty guarantee that new version of Micros ReS will have an Oracle backend.
But, hey, Sybase is a Dead Division Walking already. When was the last time you heard about them getting a NEW Fortune 500 contract?
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Oracles enterprise supply chain management package stinks to heaven and is gaining no traction in the market. Even in a market as underserved/overcharged as SAP's.
When you are the size of Oracle if you can't compete your way to market share, you buy it. Even if it's not the same market, it's close.
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What does Oracle do that is both 1) good or great, and 2) not database? I was a part of an acquisition and worked for Oracle 4 months before jumping ship. What I saw was a wasteland of half-baked integration work on their acquisitions, and abandoned products, often multiple in the same area, and a strong streak of anti-"wasn't acquired or made here" syndrome. I've heard nothing but contempt for Oracle's consultants which is why everyone I dealt with outside my org worked with third party implementation, sup
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Sailing. That cat/hydrofoil is cool.
Gonna bolt a foil to a hobie cat. Redneck hydrofoil sailboat.
also in news - my company renamed Micro System (Score:2)
A few billion for Sun Microsystems, a few billion for Micros System. I just renamed my company Micro System. Hello, Oracle? Anyone there?
It's funny, but it's also sad... (Score:1)
I love Oracle-bashing for laughs as much as the next person, however, once the chuckling subsides, we're faced with the stark reality that Oracle continues to decimate good software at every chance they get. Look what they did to Siebel Analytics (Oracle "Business Intelligence" is now an oxymoron of epic proportions - forcing Siebel Analytics into a Weblogic paradigm has turned it into a piece of over-engineered bloatware the likes of which has rarely been seen in Software history) Why more companies are no
Micros misunderstanding (Score:2)
I'm not explaining the dual acronym meanings.
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