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Oracle Businesses The Almighty Buck United States Technology

Oracle Lays Off More Than 1,000 Employees (zdnet.com) 171

Posted by msmash from the restructuring dept.
An anonymous reader writes: According to the Mercury News, Oracle is laying off approximately 450 employees in its Santa Clara hardware systems division. Reports at The Layoff, a discussion board for technology business firings, claim about 1,800 employees company-wide are being pink-slipped. Oracle claims the company isn't closing the Santa Clara facility with this reduction in force. Instead, "Oracle is refocusing its Hardware Systems business, and for that reason, has decided to lay off certain of its employees in the Hardware Systems Division."
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Oracle Lays Off More Than 1,000 Employees More

Oracle Lays Off More Than 1,000 Employees

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  • Good bye to Solaris (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:22PM (#53721407)
    Looks like this is the end of Sun SPARC and Solaris.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nbritton ( 823086 )

      Looks like this is the end of Sun SPARC and Solaris.

      Good riddance if you ask me, it was getting quite antiquated relative to Linux. Now we just need to kill off AIX. Hopefully everyone will standardize around Linux and BSD.

      • AIX is easier to administer than Linux.

        • AIX is easier to administer than Linux.

          AIX is an abomination. ODM, smitty? Umm no thanks. I liked the POWER platform though.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by WolfWalker545 ( 960367 )
            I admin AIX and Linux, I hardly ever use SMIT. Everything done through SMIT can be done using the command line, although the syntax is often obscure, but it's also all logged, so you can easily just script the operation in the future. AIX 7.2 now has live kernel updates, which is going to push uptimes even longer, especially combined with live partition mobility. Only hard failures I've had of AIX systems were when both my primary AND secondary storage arrays panicked (gotta love when management goes che

        • Re: Good bye to Solaris (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Ridicule AIX if you must, but the fact remains that I've never had an AIX system fail to boot for me due to an init system failure, while I've experienced multiple such problems with Linux due to systemd.

          AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, and FreeBSD all have their place, and it's when reliability and stability are a must. Linux, especially now with the systemd nonsense that's going on, cannot compete with them.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by gmack ( 197796 )

            Really? I haven't had a boot failure in SystemD since Debian switched while I was running Debian experimental(years ago), and even then it was down to a bad entry in /etc/fstab (I had removed a disk) and it wasn't a total failure, the boot just hung for the total 5 minute timeout without telling me anything (now it tells you what it is waiting for) instead of immediately failing the way it did before.

            If you are having multiple failures you are clearly doing something wrong. It has been solid on all of m

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              I also have seen what a problem with mounting due to systemd can cause.

              Whether it would have recovered after 5 minutes I cannot say - I cannot afford the downtime, especially when there's no explicit report as to what the hangup is. Besides, what's this about "the big advantage of systemd is faster boots" if it wants to park itself for 5 minutes?

              While there are some significant advantages that a theoretical systemd (i.e., one that confined itself to process management instead of Universe+dog) would have ove

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gmack ( 197796 )
                1 They fixed the "not saying anything" bit years ago. 2 I would rather they retry in case the disk is slow coming back online (some of SANs I just phased out were really slow) 3 The timeout is configurable.

          • Yup, as all here know I'm a BSD neckbeard but there's a different between industrial-strength OSes like AIX and Solaris and those where basically one guy can come along and fuck things up. Yeah, you guessed, not a fan of systemD

      • SPARC/Solaris is mainly used for legacy systems that are too expensive to port to x86, or where the source or expertise to do the port no longer exist. It would be insane to use S/S for any new project. So it is a dwindling market, and it just passed the point where it is no longer profitable to develop new hardware. The existing systems will continue to be available, but they will fall further and further behind and eventually fade away.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )
          SPARC/Solaris or AIX based systems would be what I'd still base anything system critical on, at least until a couple of weeks ago. x86/Linux just doesn't cut it. I remember I had a Solaris box in a closet that ran consistently I actually forgot to reboot it for 5 years. The only reason I did wind up rebooting it was because it's memory got upgraded because certain functions got a little slower over time as things grew. Quadrupling memory (memory got both cheaper and larger in the meantime) and boom - back t

          • " x86/Linux just doesn't cut it. I remember I had a Solaris box in a closet that ran consistently I actually forgot to reboot it for 5 years. The only reason I did wind up rebooting it was because it's memory got upgraded because certain functions got a little slower over time as things grew. Quadrupling memory (memory got both cheaper and larger in the meantime) and boom - back to like it was new. x86 Linux systems, at least pre-systemd, were ok but still require some hand-holding. More than 180 days of up

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )

              Some of our Linux servers that are not exposed to any hostile networks and inconvenient to reboot (e.g. monitoring display server that is displayed, along with other stuff, on a 30mx6m video wall) have uptimes of 5 years or more.... I also can't think why systemd would have any impact on uptime ...

              5 years? Seriously? You're running on an 5 year old kernel with multiple known issues (TLS, OpenSSL, etc)? I hope they're firewalled well. As for systemd, you must not be very well versed in it. SSH Fails [launchpad.net], NTP [github.com] magically fixed a service startup issue [github.com], no one knows why, and just a general list of why systemd sucks [bsdmag.org]. And that took all of 2 min to search, read, and compile, because I wanted to give you some solid backing for stating it sucks. You're in RH land with supported versions, so it's likely that these p

              • Some of our Linux servers that are not exposed to any hostile networks and inconvenient to reboot (e.g. monitoring display server that is displayed, along with other stuff, on a 30mx6m video wall) have uptimes of 5 years or more.... I also can't think why systemd would have any impact on uptime ...

                5 years? Seriously? You're running on an 5 year old kernel with multiple known issues (TLS, OpenSSL, etc)?

                I didn't say they don't get any updates at all. They just don't have kernel updates applied. There are multiple firewalls protecting these specific servers from hostile users/networks, and 90% of the people who have any access at all (e.g. HTTPS access) have sudo rights to run various things as root on them anyway. The only systems that have any firewall access to them are the other monitoring servers, and all the monitoring software is kept up-to-date.

                As for systemd, you must not be very well versed in it. SSH Fails [launchpad.net],

                Yes, some versions of systemd introducing new features

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )

                  And that took all of 2 min to search, read, and compile, because I wanted to give you some solid backing for stating it sucks.

                  Yes, it is trivial to find old bugs that are fixed, and FUD complaints from systemd haters about behaviour that has been improved.

                  I'll note that with 1 "fixed" bug, the rest appeared to all be current. You give a specific instance where systemd helps you. Just one. IIRC, you should be able to achieve the same effect in the other scripts by merely checking and waiting on pieces to come up (admittedly, this has been more than a few years, my memory may be hazy as to its simplicity) You also specify several workarounds outside of systemd to deal with things others don't like. The thing you don't address is why systemd, purportedly a star

                  • You give a specific instance where systemd helps you. Just one.

                    No, I was responding to one of the examples provided as to why 'systemd sucks' in that it seemed (in the past) to hang at boot if there was a bad entry in /etc/fstab. There is good justification for what systemd is doing (and sysvinit doesn't assist the admin at all in this regard, so the sysvinit user is left to modify all sorts of scripts like rc.sysinit - that will be overwritten by a software update - to resolve these problems).

                    As someone who has also been involved in packaging software for linux distro

                    • Re: (Score:1)

                      by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )

                      No, I was responding to one of the examples provided as to why 'systemd sucks' in that it seemed (in the past) to hang at boot if there was a bad entry in /etc/fstab.

                      It'd be nice if there were dependencies marked and things could move on while it waited. I don't recall if systemd allows for this now. I obviously haven't looked at a system in a while, and this only takes me down memory lane.

                      [init scripts]

                      I (and you) might be able to, but at present I doubt any of my colleagues would be able to do it correctly without leaving a booby trap for the next sysadmin.

                      It is true that init script editing can be obtuse. Then again, you should know what you're doing when you're mucking about with the configuration of enterprise systems. If your colleagues can't do it correctly, perhaps they shouldn't be tasked with those types of jobs. I wouldn't expe

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Seriously? Linux kernel based operating systems are decades behind Solaris.
        When will Linux get a real memory manager? (current memory manager equal to congress's budgets - spend more than you have and kill off important things like education to pay for congressional vacations, healthcare and lifetime salaries).
        When will Linux get dtrace?
        When will Linux get a filesystem / volume manager that gets even close to being as good as ZFS?

        As I said, Linux kernel based operating systems are toys for tots, not real

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by n7ytd ( 230708 )

          Amen to this... what Solaris is good at, it is shockingly good at.

          Linux's internals look like the worst possible design-by-committee abomination possible.

          The problem is that all the cool kids are using Linux, and Solaris has been dying on the vine for years. Unless you're buying hardware from Oracle, it's getting increasingly difficult to find drivers supported on Solaris; vendors are not investing the time and effort to support their new hardware on the 20-year old Solaris platform. At least, that's what

    • Solaris we already knew from the post about Solaris 12 a few days back, so now, this seals it for the SPARC as well. The Sun part of Oracle is dead

      • Oracle wanted to kill off sun - look at how many parts of sun tech they've crapped all over since they bought it. This is just the latest.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gmack ( 197796 )
          I doubt it was intentional. Oracle is just running their acquisitions the same way they run their database division. The problem is that it's much easier to change hardware/OS than it is to change databases and where I work, that's what happened. We can't dump the Oracle DB (there will be no new projects on it though) but we already stopped buying their hardware after they raised the prices. We had a blade system with a dead blade, Oracle demanded $50k to replace our blade, we threw out the blade chassi

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )
        Yep, sad to say, Solaris is a much much better system than, say, this Linux thing. Does it have challenges? Sure. But compared to x86 hardware, Solaris/SPARC just runs circles around it, although more expensive circles.

  • If Only... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:24PM (#53721449)

    If only someone at the Oracle could have foretold this.

    • Re:If Only... (Score:5, Funny)

      by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:56PM (#53721705)
      They should have bought Borland, too. Oracle Delphi could have predicted this.

      • Mod parent up!!! (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Oracle Delphi could have predicted this.

        Who says a Liberal Arts education/knowledge is worthless!!!!

        Look how it has enriched our lives. Liberal arts is history, art, the finer stuff .... and the neurosciences geeks would argue that ALL human knowledge is interrelated.

        I for one breezed through data structures because I used music analogies. Easiest 'A' in a two week Summer session ever.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

          I took Symbolic Logic from the philosophy department, which was labeled "humanities" in my school, but seemingly would fall into your "liberal arts" category. It was extremely applicable to programming and database logic.

      • It's sad when people don't remember wgere names come from. Like why Borland called it Delphi.

  • It's oracle, so... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:28PM (#53721493)

    I feel for the 500 lawyers, 200 managers, 50 directors, 149 assistant and one temp programmer needing to find a new job...

  • Thanks (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:32PM (#53721517)
    Thanks, Trump!
  • The NEW Oracle Advanced Hardware Systems Division, India opens ;)

  • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      Where's Trump when you need him?

      Simple math shows that Trump is likely irrelevant.

      California salaries > Indian salaries + Trump import tax

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by BarbaraHudson ( 3785311 )
      They better watch it - Foxconn [reuters.com] is thinking of opening a $7 Billion display screen factory in the USA, on top of $50 Billion, and you know darned well that fear of Trump putting duties on them is part of it.

      Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, is considering setting up a display-making plant in the United States in an investment that would exceed $7 billion, company chairman and chief executive Terry Gou said on Sunday.

      The plans come after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to put "America First" in his inauguration speech on Friday, prompting Gou to warn about the rise of protectionism and a trend for politics to underpin economic development.

      You really have to admit that 30-50k new jobs is significant.

      Gou said he told Son that the United States has no panel-making industry but it is the second-largest market for televisions. An investment for a display plant would exceed $7 billion and could create about 30,000-50,000 jobs, Gou told Son.

      You can hate on him all you want, but if fear of Trump can bring manufacturing jobs back, the people whose livelihood depended on manufacturing jobs and who voted for him are going to be happy they did. As for the rest, you should all wish for m

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I am really hoping that Trump is simply a genius and manages to have the cake and eat it too. There is the slim-but-now-not-non-existent chance that we can: 1) still stand for free trade, 2) end up with most of the high-tech infrastructure construction, rendering 3) the US a manufacturing powerhouse and export king. If Trump threatens enough that people actually build *mega-factory* in America, America will actually be best poised to export *megaFactoryProducts*. That said, it is going to be really hard

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 )

        [...] the people whose livelihood depended on manufacturing jobs and who voted for him are going to be happy they did.

        Except Trump isn't going to bring back the manufacturing jobs of yesteryear. A new factory today will hire a few dozen workers to handle a machine that does the work of 1,500 workers.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          There are over a million skilled manufacturing jobs unfilled right now. There's plenty to manufacture, but skilled workers willing to do blue-collar work are hard to find. Sure, we'll never return to the old days, "but the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems".

          • There's plenty to manufacture, but skilled workers willing to do blue-collar work are hard to find.

            Is the problem a lack of skilled workers willing to do the job or employers unwilling to train non-skilled workers?

            Based on my experience in Fortune 500 companies, employers are looking for people who already have the necessary job skills and could start without any training. One manager told me that he could train me but it would be a waste of his time as I would only leave to get a better paying job at a competitor. Never mind that many employees were training themselves, getting certified and leaving for

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by lgw ( 121541 )

              Employers don't train. Never have. Not really their core competency. The failure lies elsewhere, but it is a failure, and one we must address as a society as unskilled jobs dwindle away.

              • Employers don't train. Never have. Not really their core competency.

                That's because bean counters on Wall Street declared training as an unnecessary expense back in the 1980's. Since then it has become the public school system responsibility to train students into employees. If you don't know how to flip burgers out of high school, you're unemployable for the rest of your life.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by lgw ( 121541 )

                  Not just the 80s - employers have never been willing to train for skilled labor, unless you go back to old-school apprenticeships, starting at age 12 and replacing later schooling. With some relevant training, employers will generally soak of the cost of the last 10%, just as you do when hiring someone from a non-identical job elsewhere. But that takes proving that you've already learned the basics, or a similar skill (and thus proving you can learn).

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by PCM2 ( 4486 )

              Never mind that many employees were training themselves, getting certified and leaving for better paying jobs at competitors anyway.

              So do the math. Which is better, from the employer's perspective: Paying to train employees and watching them leave for better paying jobs at competitors, or letting the employees cover the cost of that training themselves?

              • So do the math.

                I find your lack of math skills disturbing. ;)

                Paying to train employees and watching them leave for better paying jobs at competitors, or letting the employees cover the cost of that training themselves?

                You left out the last part of employees training themselves: "and watching them leave for better paying jobs at competitors." Either way the employee leaves and the resulting turnover cost more in money to find a replacement than an existing employee.

        • The infrastructure and support staff it takes to manage what the bots are doing takes a little more than "a few dozen workers" in those factories. Think shipping, raw materials, management... that's why they have such large parking lots. Full automation is coming, buts it not quite here yet.... there may not be many assembly line jobs left, but forklift drivers, automation specialists, various clerks and faces... they still put a LOT of people to work.

        • The estimate is 30,000 to 50,000 new jobs. Not a few dozen workers. And that's only the beginning [reuters.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gtall ( 79522 )

            First off, it the article said "could", not will. This is just a play to Trump's ego, he's such an easy mark.

          • The estimate is 30,000 to 50,000 new jobs.

            For American or foreign workers? When I tried to break into electronic assembly work in Silicon Valley in the 1990's, all the work was done by Filipinos who came over to the U.S. to work these jobs. Being the only white guy in line when a company was hiring, I was told to go away when I asked for an application.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        They better watch it - Foxconn [reuters.com] is thinking of opening a $7 Billion display screen factory in the USA, on top of $50 Billion, and you know darned well that fear of Trump putting duties on them is part of it.

        Nope. I don't know or believe that for a second. See, I'm not dumb. I can actually read that Foxconn had plans before Trump even threw his hat into the ring.

        More importantly, I dislike governance by fear, and what I also know is that if ANYBODY on the left-wing side said anything like what Trump purports to do, the Republicans would shake in their boots at the vileness of government interfering with the free market, and most importantly, I know that the suffering factory workers in Asia, whose plight I a

        • I can actually read that Foxconn had plans before Trump even threw his hat into the ring

          Cite your source, please. I think the jobs issue is much more complex than Trump lets on. But, the last 4 presidents certainly weren't friends of manufacturing. I do see the Foxconn commitment as "fear of Trump". But, I can be convinced otherwise should you find an article demonstrating something counter to Reuters article.

        • First, you are full of shit. Foxconn originally planned to reduce overall employment at their factories by replacing workers with robots, while building new factories, so they could increase production while reducing headcount. It didn't work out quite how they hoped. Turns out it's easier to replace white-collar jobs with Watson. When AI learns how to code AI, the trend will accelerate.

          Also, the reuters story I linked to also talks about Foxconn's plans for another $50 billion in investment - that's a tot

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Desler ( 1608317 )

        Companies "think" about doing things all the time. Get back to us when it actually happens. Secondly, even if it does happen why do you presume Foxconn won't just heavily automate it so as to hire as a few people as possible?

      • You can hate on him all you want, but if fear of Trump can bring manufacturing jobs back, the people whose livelihood depended on manufacturing jobs and who voted for him are going to be happy they did

        It's really fascinating how insane this presidency is. The left in the developed world has traditionally been against globalization and free trade, precisely out of fear of low-wage jobs not being competitive against developing countries overseas. Also out of fear of environmental and labor exploitation in countries with less regulations. It was the conservative, pro big business agenda to push for more globalization and free trade.
        Now you have Trump, who is a businessman himself and ran as a Republican, ye

        • Trump is actually very left-leaning on gays and lesbians, transsexuals, and abortion. What he says now and what he's done in the past are contradictory. I'd say actions speak louder than words. Like all politicians, he says whatever he has to to get elected. It's also why he's labeled a RINO - Republican In Name Only.

          • He's Right wing on some things, and Left wing on others. Yeah, he supports LGBT rights, while on abortion, his current stance supports banning late term abortions, except for the usual rape, incest & life of the mother. He's also opposed to publicly funding abortions, hence the Mexico City executive order of today

            His trade policy is arguably Left Wing, although I've seen plenty of Conservatives switch over to his side: the Tom Friedman arguments don't hold water w/ people when they start losing the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        BS. This is just Foxconn playing el Presidente Tweety's ego. He's such a rube.

    • Setting up a new School of Masonry.

  • Ok black list from using H1B's for some time unless they hire USC's first.

  • Math (Score:2)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
    1000 jobs. Let us assume 100k per year per job cost to company. This is probably higher. This is 100 Million per year.

    Looks like good old Larry can fund himself another megayacht now.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Tiny (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Alternative Fact: Trump supporters are well endowed.

  • Oracle, what a joke. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jack9 ( 11421 ) on Monday January 23, 2017 @02:33PM (#53722025)

    It's a known quantity. Oracle rep lie sell their substandard product with shitty support, piecemeal features, and a huge bill. You deserve what you get. Almost as bad as contracting with IBM, but not quite. IBM has decent support.

  • Trump (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I wonder if Trump will claim this too as "made available 1000 highly skilled workers to Make us great again"

  • I wonder if Oracle is following the Cisco model of announcing layoffs of Americans at the front door while bringing in H1B workers through the back door.

    • http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa... [myvisajobs.com]
      "Oracle America, Inc. has filed 2999 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 1876 labor certifications for green card from fiscal year 2014 to 2016. Oracle America was ranked 23 among all visa sponsors. Please note that 49 LCA for H1B Visa and 102 LC for green card have been denied or withdrawn during the same period."

      So, wonder what this will say for 2017? And wonder if these H1Bs were let go before the layoffs?

  • Is Trump taking credit for this one too (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 23, 2017 @02:46PM (#53722161)

    This one combined with Microsoft's layoffs has already cancelled out the few hundred jobs Trump was so proud of keeping in the US a few weeks. Maybe the Oracle employees can get a job at Carrier.

  • I guess this coupled with the announcement about Solaris last week means Oracle is finally finished squeezing the last pennies out of the SPARC/Solaris architecture. Admittedly it's very rare to see new implementations of a proprietary UNIX...every place I've dealt with in the last few years is trying to rid themselves of all the legacy code and hardware that keeps them on Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc.

    I wonder what kind of cost/benefit calculation they came up with. The company I work for has a bunch of mainfra

  • Hope you saved some money

  • Regular occurance (Score:3)

    by Gojira Shipi-Taro ( 465802 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @12:51AM (#53726353) Homepage

    As someone who once worked for a company led by a former Oracle Exec, this is par for the course. Larry Ellison is legendary for his "environment of fear" where they lay people off every 6 months both to keep people afraid for their jobs, and to pump up bonus money for the middle management above the people in question.

    Happened at the company I worked for, and though I was ostensibly safe due to my skill set, I finally got sick of watching good people that I had worked with for over a decade that I knew were doing good work being laid off to meet a quota.

    Fuck Oracle. Fuck Larry Ellison, and fuck every exec that learned that horse shit from him.

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