Oracle's Aggressive Sales Tactics Are Backfiring With Customers (lightreading.com) 232
An anonymous reader shares a report: Oracle's aggressive sales tactics are turning off customers, setting a roadblock in the company's race to catch up with Amazon Web Services in the cloud, according to a report on The Information. [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. Oracle is threatening customers of its on-premises software with potentially expensive usage audits and strongly suggesting those customers could solve their problems by moving to the cloud, The Information says. But the tactic is backfiring. "Several big Oracle customers, including oil and gas exploration company Halliburton, toy maker Mattel and electricity provider Edison Southern California, have recently rejected big cloud services deals proposed by Oracle, according to an Oracle employee with knowledge of the situation," the publication reported. "Oracle representatives had suggested the customers strike the deals to avoid expensive audits of how they were using Oracle software, according to the employee. Instead, that approach to selling cloud is irritating customers," it added.
When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:3, Informative)
Oracle does this to government agencies all the time. It works quite well. All of them cave to demands to buy more licenses or face audits.
It's racketeering.
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's racketeering.
Then it's time to hit Oracle with a RICO Act . . .
. . . if Oracle hasn't already paid off the district attorneys . . .
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Then it's time to hit Oracle with a RICO Act . . .
It's time to hit Oracle with a tactical nuke.
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Then it's time to hit Oracle with a RICO Act . . .
In general whenever you think about doing anything with the RICO act to an organisation, just slap yourself in the face a few times, and then actually go through a normal list of federal crimes or civil contract law. RICO was designed to bring down the kind of organisation that didn't exist on paper. If you could throw a RICO book at Oracle, they'd already not exist, be paying a long backlock of federal fines, and Larry Ellison would be donating his net worth to as many people as possible to stay out of pri
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:2, Interesting)
When they approched out business we switched to postgresql
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Interesting)
When they approched out business we switched to postgresql
I'll skip the details, but we, though our circumstances were not so dire, switched out all Oracle instances under our control to PostgreSQL because we got sick and tired of every aspect of Oracle's database (the software, the sales and marketing departments, the piss poor customer support, etc.).
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We are doing something similar. Although, the approach is more progressive.
We are switching from Oracle to PostgreSQL for new projects, and will move the existing databases as opportunities arise...
One can only hope that Oracle DB will follow Solaris in the slow death by free software, Oracle has an history of trying to monetize what can be had for free and failing miserably. I wonder how fast they will manage to kill Java given their current history of alienating customers.
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Well, I realize I found their database terrible, the sales tactics abominable, and decided to never do business with them again. I never bothered to consider whether they did anything beside the database, because the quality of the database was only a part of my reason for avoiding them.
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:2)
Which is the reason to never, if possible, get tangled up in the Oracle web.
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The migration strategy is especially complex because consultants "see them coming" when they see they're transitioning from Oracle; those clients are used to paying more than 10 times what people using alternatives pay, and so the rates go up. Yes there is a lot to replace, but you're replacing low quality stuff that is designed to be a huge mess with much simpler stuff that has less parts and where each part is less complicated.
Oracle tricks these companies that see themselves as being super-duper-enterpri
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You do realise Siebel predates HTML5 and php?
Not that you can buy it any more, Oracle stopped selling shit branded Siebel years ago.
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Oh yeah. I worked for the department of parks in australia for a few years and it boggled my mind that on a team of six in development, one guy ended up spending most of his time dealing with bullshit Oracle licensing. We ended up ditching all that code and moving it to Postgres. But it wasnt enough to flush them out. Problem is accounts where dependent
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they couldn't. The provisions in the enterprise schemes that Oracle and other large IT organisations set up in return for offering deep discounts to their biggest customers almost invariably contain significant obligations around audits, which will be expensive and disruptive regardless of whether anything contravening any terms is actually found.
The correct solution is probably to respond in kind. "Nice Oracle deployment we've got, and quite lucrative for you guys over many years now. Be a shame if the relationship broke down and we had to spend that money migrating our whole infrastructure to [competitor] instead."
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because once the application are written to one flavor of SQL and the large amount data stored into that database, it is prohibitively expensive and disruptive to migrate out, so the vendor has an upper-hand to the existing large paying customers (who typically have under-trained developers.) This strategy would only backfire in attracting future customers once the stories spread out.
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because once the application are written to one flavor of SQL and the large amount data stored into that database, it is prohibitively expensive and disruptive to migrate out
It's probably expensive, yes, but whether it's prohibitively so depends entirely on your circumstances. Maybe you can afford to hire enough smart people to get the job done if the alternative is being forced to migrate to some new cloud/subscription mess, which itself comes with a lot of risk and with unknown stability and uncertain future costs.
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:2, Interesting)
When Netflix was just a DVD company the database was Oracle with a single monoliths c Java application called javaweb. As the migration from DVD in the Datacenter to Streaming in AWS was made Oracle was switched with Cassandra. During the transition many outages were caused by dual sources of truth that got called Roman Riding (riding 2 horses by standing on each one with one foot, any disparity and you fall). It tools years to decouple the two. The dvd.com business stayed in the Datacenter with Oracle, for
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
You get stuck with the sunk cost problem. You're spent tons of money rolling things out to support Oracle. Now the yearly cost is high, but it's still a lot smaller than starting from scratch, so the companies stick with it. Never mind that the IT staff that are trained in Oracle and don't have experience in anything else have a vested interest in keeping Oracle lest they get replaced at the same time that Oracle is replaced.
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It's probably expensive, yes, but whether it's prohibitively so depends entirely on your circumstances.
Your circumstances got you into using Oracle in the first place, it is prohibitively expensive to switch your application. If it weren't you wouldn't be using this type of platform in the first place.
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Surely that at least depends on how long you've been using it for? Some places have been on Oracle for many years, and the alternatives have come a long way in that time. Migrating fundamental infrastructure in your organisation is always risky, expensive, time-consuming and generally not great, but being abused by a supplier who holds you captive isn't great either.
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Some places have been on Oracle for many years, and the alternatives have come a long way in that time.
I see the words you strung together, but I translated them to: Oracle has become entrenched in the business and everyone we know is trained in it, and we all know how to service it and moving away would be an unmitigated disaster.
Migrating fundamental infrastructure in your organisation is always risky, expensive, time-consuming and generally not great, but being abused by a supplier who holds you captive isn't great either.
Oh I agree. But that sentence there will not win you over with management.
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Oracle stopped using lube during their yearly marketing visits with management, read the fine summary. Management is looking for a safe escape.
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But that sentence there will not win you over with management.
No doubt you're right, at least regarding a lot of businesses. Without both management and tech people on board, you're certainly not going to escape the trap, and if Oracle believes that's the position you're in, you have no leverage at all in negotiations.
In that case, management just has to accept that they wrote a blank cheque to an organisation like Oracle and now they have to pay up.
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Management is looking for a safe escape.
Exactly. And the argument presented is not that safe escape. Management will do what they do best. Look at the pros and cons and then decide that anal really only hurts the first few times and then you kind of get to like it.
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Interesting my reply ended up in the wrong part of the thread...
Management is looking for a safe escape.
Exactly. And the argument presented is not that safe escape. Management will do what they do best. Look at the pros and cons and then decide that anal really only hurts the first few times and then you kind of get to like it.
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Which is why smart devs stick to ANSI SQL as much as practical, and leave a standard way of finding all the vendor specific code.
Sure, you are porting stored procedures. But 90% of your data layer should 'just work'. It's expensive and time consuming, but cheaper than Oracle licensing.
Software vendors need to beware of being Oracle only. Sure some places are Oracle shops, but others won't touch Oracle at all. Smart ones will consider the DB, but _absolutely_nothing_else_ from Oracle, not even Java.
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If you're switching to postgresql then the stored procedures are easy to port.
People who think it is hard probably don't know about the options.
Smart companies with big databases hire generic DBAs, not BrandyBrand(TM) Certified people who appear to be technical employees working for you, but because their training is company-other-than-yours dependent they actually act as sales engineers for the vendor!
There is no reason to consider the BrandyBrand(TM) DB once you look at the cost, and realize that you have
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Devil is in the details.
I've been around long enough to be very skeptical of compatibility layers. Validating can be non-trivial, but at least you'll build tests (you should have had all along).
They didn't... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They didn't... (Score:5, Informative)
Oracle was always expensive as hell. They just were slightly cheaper than IBM's DB2 and didn't require an expensive IBM mainframe contract back in the 1980s. Larry's answer always was I had payroll to meet for my developers back then.
A company's goal is always to raise the shareprice forever with never an end in sight. The rest of the world is making money by selling to China in the past 20 years. Oracle unfortunately can't do this as Chinese do not pay for software so they need a new creative way to bump up the shareprice.
Re:They didn't... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure how this news relates to China. But Oracle has a huge presence in China and earn a lot revenue from there [oracle.com]. Don't get brainwashed by Western media.
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I'm curious, but why did you link a press release about Asia Pacific revenues when claiming a large presence in China?
Total APAC revenues in Fiscal Year 2017 for Oracle were 15% of their global total, and China is just one of multiple markets in that region (which also includes, e.g. Malaysia, Japan and India).
Add in the Chinese constraints on foreign cloud services (i.e. Oracle's primary sales focus right now) and it's just not a great country for them.
Maybe their recent deal with Tencent will change that,
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Often for American companies "Asia-Pacific" only means Australia and Japan. And sometimes only Australia.
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Not sure how this news relates to China. But Oracle has a huge presence in China and earn a lot revenue from there [oracle.com]. Don't get brainwashed by Western media.
As China tires of dealing with Oracle, it will develop its own implementation of SQL, which it will then sell to the world at a discount. Oracle goes poof.
Re:They didn't... (Score:5, Informative)
In business school, they taught me to value the customer relationship over its lifetime. They also taught to think of all of the folks involved in the lifecycle of the product, including impacted non-customers, as important stakeholders. Oracle's approach has always been shortsighted, but it's painting with too broad a brush to treat all of the business educated as dollar chasing world breakers. Oracle's faults are Oracle's. Their shortsightedness is the result of *not* listening to sound advice, including that of MBAs.
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In business school, they taught me to value the customer relationship over its lifetime.
Are you sure they didn't say, "Screw 'em in the ASS!" and you maybe misheard? Because I don't see much valuing of customer relationships going on out there.
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Match.
Re:They didn't... (Score:4, Informative)
In business school, they taught me to value the customer relationship over its lifetime.
The value of the customer relationship is not fixed. Either you're not doing the lifetime cost assessment or you went to one of those crappy business schools that preach "the customer is always right". Screwing over a few customers for money at the expense of losing some of them may be a right business choice. ... Especially when you have vendor lockin on your side.
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They don't even teach those things in the same classes.
"The customer is always right" is part of marketing and PR classes, it is never part of the business classes.
You might be mistaking the quality of the student for the quality of the lessons the school teaches; graduates of MBA-mills might really even be good enough at business to keep the subjects straight, and the school might nevertheless have a working strategy to lead them to a passing grade in each class. But even there, a student who understands t
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They are, but think Heroin dealer...sure a few will slip the hook, but the rest are just resources to be milked until they die.
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Clearly, in business school, they wrecked your brain.
Oracle made a staggering amount of money on their original business proposition by applying maximal extraction leverage at every opportunity.
Everyone knows that maximal extraction leads to an ultimate goodwill implosion. But the dividends alone from that stockpiled mountain of cash are a fine, eternal goodwill replacement. (Check any competent MBA textbook's i
Re:When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not a Gnu zealout by any sense of the means but being addicted to proprietary file formats is evil.
We all hate Microsoft for doing this but Oracle and IBM have been doing this long before MS rise and in my eyes is less evil than Oracle today. Microsoft at least gives you the bone if you go to Azure and Office 365 by including other features and tools vs buying a copy.
It is no different than ransomware once you are hooked. If your customer data or a MUST HAVE mission critical app has an Oracle dependency using proprietary PSQL your choices are to pay the ransom to Oracle, get sued, or shut your company down. Take your pick?
Halliburton probably figured it would be cheaper to fight in court then pay the ransom as they have lots of money and I would guess seat licenses that Oracle is drooling to charge.
Meanwhile IT costs keep going up even though technology should make them go down. They just lay us off and replace us with Indians and pay Larry Ellison the difference.
Re:When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:4, Funny)
Do you have any evidence of this? We've been using Microsoft enterprise-class software (not just Office) for years, and we've never been threatened with an audit.
Re:When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:4, Funny)
One
Raging
Asshole
Called
Larry
Ellison
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Apple has historically been much more a proponent of proprietary file formats than IBM has been. It may well be true that not many files use EBCDIC encoding, but they *could*.
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Apple did give us HTML 5 and kill flash. THANK GOD. IE 6 was killing all innovation last decade and it refused to ever die. The iphone and demand to view their shitty IE 6 only sites on it propelled HTML 5 as Firefox itself wasn't enough to kill of IE 6 specific CSS and javascript hacks.
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Apple really wrote the first HTML 5 draft as HTML 4.01 was too cutting edge for IE appearrently back in 2007 back in the first iPhone. Google quickly hopped on board and Firefox was eager to follow if everyone agreed to a standard. Google now is taking leadership but objects like canvas were central.
True it took until 2014 when old IE verion 8 went eol before it became mainstream. If the first iPhone didn't come out we might of still been using HTML 4.
Apple really is not updating Safari anymore after Steve'
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The reason for this was the mere 128K of ram wasn't enough back in 1984 to have the mac do all what Steve Jobs wanted it to do. The answer was a custom ROM chip with part of MacOS on it to clear out more ram for apps. Hell, the original Mac even had a chip just for freaking icon processing.
The Apple boot sequence was put on the ROM to conserve the ram.
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Since when was Oracle run by 'software geeks'?
when the PHB said that extortion drives in $$$$ (Score:2)
when the PHB said that extortion drives in $$$$
Re:When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If this is a concern for you then you probably deserve to get audited.
Re: When did software geeks become the Mob? (Score:2)
Yeah, it'd sure be nicer if the Democrats had won in '16 so the IRS could be the nasty mofos we all remember fondly. There are probably whole layers in the IRS org sweating bullets that their corner of the swamp will be next to be drained. The statute of limitations hasn't passed for those Obama glory years.
Still, the people who voted Dem in '16 should be eager to help the IRS take their money, for nostalgia's sake.
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I for one am not the kind of person who uses the Offtopic mod to mean "I disagree politically." Your comment is totally clear and applicable to the discussion: any scheme for raising revenue that cannot be made simple and automatic deserves all the cheaters it attracts.
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In Oracle's case it was already legal. (I don't know which of Trump's actions you think applies to this case.)
Being legal is not the same as tolerable.
Re: Oracle and Microsoft... (Score:5, Informative)
Oracle has some pretty draconian tactics. I used to work for an Oracle EBS customer, and let me tell you, they are just like the mob. First, their fees are partially calculated by business revenue, which is absurd. Secondly, they failed to inform us of various software licenses on the technology side we would need to acquire which was only disclosed once we were partially through implementation. Turns out some ancillary oracle software we purchased wouldn't work without yet more oracle middleware to integrate back to the EBS suite.
Then, once they purchased Sun, the performance / processor license vs the cost of said licenses basically incentivized us to invest in slower, bulkier servers through absurd processor core multipliers which differ based on the kind of CPU you used.
Oracle sales are the mob, for sure!
Wake me when they switch DBs (Score:4, Interesting)
"Oracle representatives had suggested the customers strike the deals to avoid expensive audits of how they were using Oracle software, according to the employee. Instead, that approach to selling cloud is irritating customers,"
But are they irritated enough to bit the bullet, port their mission-critical processes to a non-Oracle database and kiss Oracle goodbye? (If not, they've knuckled under and are going to be locked in to Oracle's products and pricing forever - or at least until a later generation of their own management.)
If Oracle is already pressuring them to port to a different DB (their cloud product) they've got a golden opportunity. Yes it might be more effort to port to some other DB then Oracle's own "other DB". But much of the work to absorb any differences - the port, the testing, and the dual-DB cya period - will be the same in either case. So it's only an increment, rather than the whole price of a DB port, to go to a different DB.
Re:Wake me when they switch DBs (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oracle representatives had suggested the customers strike the deals to avoid expensive audits of how they were using Oracle software, according to the employee. Instead, that approach to selling cloud is irritating customers,"
But are they irritated enough to bit the bullet, port their mission-critical processes to a non-Oracle database and kiss Oracle goodbye? (If not, they've knuckled under and are going to be locked in to Oracle's products and pricing forever - or at least until a later generation of their own management.)
If Oracle is already pressuring them to port to a different DB (their cloud product) they've got a golden opportunity. Yes it might be more effort to port to some other DB then Oracle's own "other DB". But much of the work to absorb any differences - the port, the testing, and the dual-DB cya period - will be the same in either case. So it's only an increment, rather than the whole price of a DB port, to go to a different DB.
... and switch to? The only thing equal is MS SQL Server which is also expensive and could do the same shit Oracle did.
No MySQL and PostGreSQL are not options unless you serve web content and do simple database stuff. People who buy MS SQL Server and Oracle use their AI, financial, and advanced reporting tools. Business Intelligence APIs are HUGE right now and it is also possible it is not them but their other software they purchased is using Oracle as a requirement.
In the old days when software was made in house you could avoid these problems. But the MBA's love packaged software for savings RIGHT NOW and this is what you get.
Re:Wake me when they switch DBs (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is, you don't switch from Oracle (say, Exadata boxes) to something comparable as there is nothing directly comparable. What companies do is rethink their approach to BI, reporting and such and move to SaaS solutions, while simplifying greatly. The old days, where Fortune 500 companies would invest double digit millions in 1x and millions in ongoing spend in BI tools are gone.
I am an enterprise architect, worked for a few very large companies and currently am CIO-1 in a 50bn company. We ditched Oracle and moved serverless all the way, and are reaping double digit million savings. Not to mention we don't have to run this shit.
Oracle, in the meantime, is on a mission to push existing customers to their weird and overdue cloud thing. It started about 4 years ago, and their tactics started with stripping their own salesforece of commisions on on-prem solutions. Then price hikes. Now, I hear, auditing. (We've since cancelled all our licenses so luckily that's not one of my problems anymore).
As to why people stick and swear by Oracle - Exadata offers support for insanely bad queries and still manages to make a pretty good job running them. This is a good solutions for companies with incompetent, outsourced dev teams that don't mind paying for the licenses. But the number of such companies is going down and Oracle must see the writing on the wall - they are going the IBM way of being relegated to niche solutions, US gov't contracts and the like. And by looking at IBM numbers, it's not exactly a pleasant place to be.
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How is Postgres not an option? I’ve used it in some super heavy installations and it’s always been amazing. In fact if we are only discussing the database itself, Oracle has less features in many areas.
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Not only that, but if you use the 'enterprise' version of PostgreSQL, you even get an oracle compatibility layer.
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No MySQL and PostGreSQL are not options unless you serve web content and do simple database stuff. People who buy MS SQL Server and Oracle use their AI, financial, and advanced reporting tools.
Not all of them. Some of them use Oracle because they used Oracle 20 years ago and don't want to change, even though any SQL database would work. I know by experience.
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Do you know what an Oracle DBA makes vs other database DBAs?
That's a pretty penny for a glorified backup monkey. (which is all many DBAs are, not all, but many.)
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When you install SQL Server or Oracle you have the option to install Business AI and Excel plugins like smart view to connect to your data and autogeneration of reports scripts and Java apis to do ERP and other things. It stopped being just a table 20 years ago.
This creat a lock-in but also non programmer financial analysts who live and die by the tools to generate cute dashboards and detailed Excel outputs for the MBA bosses. Postgrsql is a cute database. No more no less.
Really this is an example of Foss s
Re:Wake me when they switch DBs (Score:4, Interesting)
3rd paty database (Score:4, Interesting)
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Are you saying that a cloud-based Oracle instance is harder to audit than an on-premise Oracle instance?
Why? As a programmer with a lot of years dealing with databases, both cloud and on-prem, I see no difference.
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These oil companies are migrating to cloud based services en-mass, happy to fork over huge contracts even for their mission critical / business sensitive things.
Don't confuse the consumer cloud with what enterprises do. I may not like the idea of linking my windows account to my microsoft account, but those Fortune 500s are all about linking entire active directory systems into the cloud.
Sometimes, being the biggest asshole does not work (Score:2)
It may get you a job as president, but selling software and services to people that _know_ your stuff is overpriced and inferior is a bit of a different situation.
ERP is one of the last bastions ... (Score:2)
... ripe for disruption.
There are some good FOSS projects that have potential, but they haven't reached critical mass yet. I suspect some player getting inroads within the next decade and giving Oracle and SAP a run for their money.
Looking forward to that.
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Name one?
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That's not an ERP system...
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Fuck Oracle (Score:2)
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Everybody hates them, but too few hate them enough (Score:2)
Every technologist on the planet, every single one of them not on Oracle payroll, hates this company, their products, and most of all their tactics. But not enough of them have the influence or the grit to move to something else. Now is the time. Oracle wants you to move to the cloud, so do it now. Just move to some other cloud. Any other cloud, any other application stack, it really doesn't matter where it is or how much it costs to make it happen. It will be worth it in the end.
Sounds familiar.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I recall being on an implementation one time where Microsoft had given the client a sweetheart deal on SQL Server. Basically gave it to them for free. So right in the middle of the project they decide that we are switching from Oracle database to SQL Server database. In the Enterprise Software game this is a big deal.
Since Oracle also owns the application software, as well as the database, the SQL is written optimally for Oracle. While they support other DBs like SQL Server and DB2, the bug fixes arrive earlier for Oracle. We had to tune every line of SQL, every query, every report. Reports that took 30 seconds to run in Oracle were taking 5 minutes to run in SQL Server. We got it done in the end but it was basically a nightmare.
I see others on this thread saying just switch to Postgre SQL. If it's not tied to back end applications that are also from Oracle then sure, it might be a viable option. When you are running Enterprise software that is essentially running your entire business (HR, Payroll, Financials, Inventory, Logistics, etc.) then it is going to be a very tough sell trying to convince your CIO or CEO to switch to a different database platform. The risk is simply too great. Most likely you are going to be told to suck it up and make it work.
Oracle, of course, knows this and that is what allows them to get away with these strong arm tactics. I suspect this is a large part of the reason they got into the Enterprise software business in the first place. It gets their hooks further into the client and makes it all that much more difficult to exit. It is also part of the reason that they are taking the threats from Workday and other cloud vendors so seriously. It is one of the few ways that companies can escape the clutches of Oracle and still run their business without undue risk. Now, cloud software presents risks of its own but that's another discussion for another day :-)
This is a dabase design error (Score:2)
For any software company, product licensing should be bulletproof and transparent to the user, as with Adobe. When you install any of the company's products it should be obvious what your legal status is, because an unlicensed product won't install and an expired license should make the product unusable.
If you're a database vendor (a database vendor!) and your user has to submit 23,000 pages of documentation to prove that it's using your product in a valid way, and then you're still not sure, Oracle's board
Over-milking the captive audience? (Score:2)
I can't think of any environment I'm familiar with that isn't actively trying to get away from Oracle. I think they know this too and are just trying to squeeze out the last few drops of money. Basically, anyone doing business with Oracle is doing so because they're stuck with them. This is also true for the other big legacy software houses like CA, MicroFocus, Symantec, etc...where old software packages that hold together the core of large businesses go to live out their retirement years.
Everyone thinks of
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I received an email a couple of weeks ago detailing how we are going to migrate everything to SAP (so it might be worse, I wouldn't know).
I am guessing, but I would imagine we spend millions per year on Oracle, so Larry won't be happy. Yay!
Re:Oracle Auditing (Score:5, Interesting)
I received an email a couple of weeks ago detailing how we are going to migrate everything to SAP (so it might be worse, I wouldn't know).
Oh shit, now you're really fucked. I mean barbed-wire-wrapped-baseball-bat-in-the-ass fucked.
I have had more exposure to SAP installs/systems than I ever cared to, and in each and every case the whole thing was a tremendous clusterfuck from start to...well, I would say "finish", but a SAP project is never finished. NEVER. It's never completed and so the money flows steadily out the door like a river...forever.
Run like the wind, brother. Run and don't look back.
Re:Oracle Auditing (Score:5, Funny)
I have had more exposure to SAP installs/systems than I ever cared to, and in each and every case the whole thing was a tremendous clusterfuck from start to...well, I would say "finish", but a SAP project is never finished. NEVER. It's never completed and so the money flows steadily out the door like a river...forever.
The company I work for switched to "concur" by SAP for travel stuff. It's sort of like they decided to combine the worst bits of paper forms with the worst bits of computer based forms, then dizzle a fine layer of dog poo over the top.
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You are correct. It is poo.
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The company I work for switched to "concur" by SAP for travel stuff. It's sort of like they decided to combine the worst bits of paper forms with the worst bits of computer based forms, then dizzle a fine layer of dog poo over the top.
We did this migration last year. It was awesome[1]. So much better.
[1] This post is not a vote of confidence in SAP but a vote of no confidence in the IBM solution we used previously.
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[1] This post is not a vote of confidence in SAP but a vote of no confidence in the IBM solution we used previously.
Aaah IBM: the living embodyment of "no matter how bad you think it is, it can always be worse".
Way back we used to have this system called "agent" or "travel agent" or something. It was amazing, you sent it an email and it must have had some mad-ass NLP or something since it parsed out your requirements and emailed back you an itenerary.
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When I was a road warrior, I had the best damn travel agent.
They knew all the tricks regarding gaming the reservation system.
For example: I need to fly RTF now, but all the flights are full. No problem, they book me to London, then cancel the international leg. Warn me to get to the gate early, so I'm not the one to get bumped.
Re: (Score:2)
For example: I need to fly RTF now, but all the flights are full. No problem, they book me to London, then cancel the international leg. Warn me to get to the gate early, so I'm not the one to get bumped.
Ha! Nice.
The rise of these systems is ultimately because of poor accounting practices. Someone (presumably) does the math and sees how much $ is spent on the travel agent and how much they can save in their department by switching to an automatic system.
The thing is becaue of poor practices, their departmen
SAP (Score:2)
I have twenty five years experience of working on SAP - and I can say only one of the implementations I worked on was as you described, and it was solely as a result of catastrophically bad management. If it was as bad as you say I find it hard to believe that SAP would maintain the kind of customer base that it has today.
Re:Oracle Auditing (Score:4, Funny)
What are you talking about SAP is the best thing you can do for your business.
You'll lose track of finances and accounts owed and your business expenses dramatically decline as a result.
The trick is to work with suppliers who also use SAP and then they'll lose track of the fact you haven't paid their bills.
Re:Oracle Auditing (Score:4, Funny)
Are you talking about the project, or the operational use?
Yes.
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Re:Not new.. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is similar to the question I've been asking: Are there any happy Oracle customers? My (limited) research suggests that the vast majority of Oracle customers have one of three characteristics: (1) They don't know any better, (2) They have more money than time/expertise for converting, (3) They're locked in.
Are there other reasons? Is there anyone who would choose to do a new implementation using Oracle these days? For all I know there may be a lot of people who would, but I've never knowingly met any of them.
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(4) The non IT geeks, but financial and statistician math nerds LOVE Toad and all the cute dashboards of real time business intelligence they can impress their MBA friends with.
To them it's not psql but the other tools that no competitor besides Microsoft has.
They are the ones who think they can boss IT around and get it done because they like their tools and IT will obey or be outsourced.
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...Are there any happy Oracle customers? My (limited) research suggests that the vast majority of Oracle customers have one of three characteristics: (1) They don't know any better, (2) They have more money than time/expertise for converting, (3) They're locked in.
My experience is also very limited, but I can assure you that there is at least one customer who has all three characteristics.
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There's lots of "should" and "shouldnt", but the fact is if you are locked in to oracle you are subservient to their demands and you have no rights.