California + Oracle = $95 Million Fiasco

bahtama writes: "The Sacramento Bee is reporting that California apparently signed an agreement to purchase 95 million dollars worth of Oracle software that they really didn't need and that will not save them as much money as promised. They apparently purchased 270,000 licenses, which is more than all the state workers, including prison guards and others who would never need it." How do you think Oracle would treat the whole country?

Comments

Governments misspend taxpayer's money?

[Kohath]

No way. When did this start?

Re:Governments misspend taxpayer's money?

[zapfie]

Are you saying we should just be complacent about it? Yeah, it happens all the time, but that doesn't mean we should get used to it.

Re:Governments misspend taxpayer's money?

[Arandir]

And then don't complain when your civil services go to hell (police response, road conditions, school quality)

Are you saying the only way to have enough adequate funding for police is to have so much spare cash that Davis will mispend it on Oracle licenses?

I say tax the people only enough to support the essential services, and force Davis to pay for his own team of lawyers.

So?

[Have Blue]

California did sign the agreement. Oracle expects them to abide by the contract. California should have thought a bit more before signing, perhaps, but there is no wrongdoing here. If they signed a contract to purchase 270,000 useless copies of Red Hat, no one would be complaining.

Re:So?

[r_j_prahad]

If they signed a contract to purchase 270,000 useless copies of Red Hat, no one would be complaining.

That's right, they wouldn't be complaining, because how much would 270,000 installs of RedHat cost? $89.95, that's how much.

Re:So?

[JimBobJoe]

California did sign the agreement. Oracle expects them to abide by the contract.

The situation is not exactly clear yet, but the article leads me to believe that the state will claim that Oracle and this Logicon company thinger may have misrepresented themselves during the contract negotiation process. Misrepresentation is definitely something that can cause contract to get nullified:

"The disparity "raises the question that Logicon may have misled the state," the audit says. "The fact that Logicon appears to benefit by as much as $28.5 million from its role ... makes these disparities even more troubling."

We shall see what happens in court.

State ID cards

[Mad Man]

Maybe everybody issued a national ID card, or scanned by facial recognition technology, will require a license from Oracle before they can be tracked?

Larry was just doing his patriotic duty

[gambit3]

... to make up for all those millions and millions the BSA claims are lost to piracy. He was just buying licenses for them.

Re:Larry was just doing his patriotic duty

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Poor Oracle. They have to lower thsemselves to stuff like this, because of all those warez kiddies running Oracle 9i Enterprise on their 64 cpu Sun boxen.

i see this as a possible scenario...

[Atilla]

...if you get pulled over in california:

"May I see your driver's license, proof of insurance, and your Oracle seat license please"

Does anybody remember that Futurama...

[jeremy f]

..Where Amy went car shopping at that "Malfunctioning Eddies" or wherever; and upon being sold a car (after haggling for it at a HIGHER price), the owner-robot exploded?

Why do I get the impression that there's quite a few Oracle employees who just exploded; and that California is going to be mightily pissed when they find that their new Oracle Software isn't going to come with quite as much Eagle as the salesmen promised...

Oracle cheating? not quite...

[japhmi]

If the poster would actually read the article, they'd see that the company Logicon sold the Oracle software to the state, not Oracle themselves.

Re:Oracle cheating? not quite...

[hal200]

Perhaps you should have kept reading...and I block quoth (emphasis mine):

In a written statement attached to the audit, Gage wrote, "In hindsight, it may have been more prudent to delay execution of the agreement" until the savings claims could be evaluated.

A lawyer for the Department of General Services, meanwhile, was given only a few hours to review the contract.

The breakneck timeline was imposed by Oracle, the audit says.

"There was obviously a crushing need to hurry to get this thing done" to boost Oracle's reported earnings at the end of its fiscal year, Bowen said. "The state shouldn't be in the business of propping up any company's balance sheet, period."

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Oracle's involvement in this particular clusterfuck...If they hadn't been so intent on proping up their 4th quarter numbers, the contract would most likely have gotten the review, and probably the subsequent shrieking gales of laughter it deserved.

Of course, a large helping of shame goes to the Gov't of Calif for letting Oracle/Logicon railroad them like that. This is the sort of thing 'due process' is meant to avoid.

Blame Oracle?

[The Slashdolt]

If you read the article, it wasn't Oracle who should be blamed for this. It was the sales people from Logicon Inc who scammed them.

Re:Blame Oracle?

[patmfitz]

And of the $28 million that Logicon scammed, how much of that went to a kickback for the people who signed the contract?

Let me get this straight...

[smack_attack]

We're in a recession and companies are STILL laying people off, yet California has the gall to blow $95M on too many licenses and software they don't need?

Sadly, fiscal responsibility in the government still seems to be generations away. If I still lived in Cali I'd try and get a proposition on the ballot that new expenditures over $(n)M have to be approved by the voter. Ditto for raises for elected officials, we should be able to fire these idiots as easily as we elect them.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[dmccarty]

This is getting off-topic, but let me reply...

I don't see how moving the democratic process back into the hands of THE PEOPLE could be considered mob rule!

The democratic process in this country doesn't entitle the populace to make every major decision. Rather, it allows you to pick your leader, who will then make those decision for an appointed period of time. If you don't like those decisions, either don't vote for him in the first place or don't vote to re-elect him.

If major decisions were made by the majority of the United States we probably would've nuked several Arab countries shortly after Sept. 11 and immediately sent in ground troops, then pulled them back as soon as someone died, effectively accomplishing nothing. If major decisions were made by a simple majority what would stop 51% of Serbs from killing 49% of Croats?

That doesn't sound democratic to me.

A pure democracy is a dangerous thing. The US isn't a democracy, it's a republic. Two quotes come to mind:
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner." --Anon
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" --Winston Churchill

Mr. Talking head in a suit making $250K/yr does NOT represent the majority.

Then why does the majority elect him? If you feel that you better represent the majority of voters then you should run for office and logically win! If not, get behind the candidate who most closely represents your views and vote for him or her. But instead of lamenting about the problems, use our democratic process for its advantages!

Golden opportunity for the Golden state

[nakhla]

What I'd really like to see happen is California take some initiative and put this software to good use! Yes, they've got WAY more licenses than they need. But, that's based on their CURRENT need. California has the chance now to do some really big things with information management.

My dad works for the State of Maryland. I can't even imagine how many millions (billions?) of dollars MD could save if they just restructured the way they maintain information. Welfare records are still being maintained using PAPER spreadsheets. Auditing this information takes months. The savings in this area alone could justify such a purchase. Auditing time could be cut drastically. Code could be written to locate discrepancies in the data. This doesn't even take into account things like payroll systems which could be automated. Doing that would allow the state to eliminate the positions of the hundreds of people with little-to-no education they have working in their payroll department.

Bill Gates (love him or hate him) really hit the nail on the head in his book Business @ The Speed of Thought. It really outlines how technology can be used to increase the flow of information, while at the same time reducing the cost associated with acting on that information.

Maybe someone in the California government will take charge and turn this bad situation into a golden opportunity!

Re:Golden opportunity for the Golden state

[G-funk]

PosgreSQL can do anything Oracle can

Ah. Everytime I hear "X can do everything Oracle can" it makes me smile.

You know why oracle charges so much money? You know why oracle's the second biggest software company? Sure it's partly marketing, but mainly Oracle markets itself. Oracle is the most powerful, scalable, and generally rock-steady-makes-toast-cuts-potatoes-in-3-styles database in the world by a long shot bar none.

Comparing postgressql to oracle is like comparing the JET engine and a .mdb file to SQL Server 2000. It's a joke and makes you look like an idiot to people who know anything about databases.

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[The Slashdolt]

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Moot Point

[plinko_chip]

All of this is meaningless, since within a years time California won't have any electricity!

Re:Oh come on, honestly...

[dewke]

No, there is no difference.

Oracle and California signed a contract, California was really REALLY stupid. I seriously doubt that Larry Ellison made California "an offer they couldn't refuse". Oracle is sure as hell not going to refuse the deal. They are a for profit company that sells software...

It is not the companies responsibility to police its customers. If someone comes to my company and offers us 3x what we normally charge for our services we will happily take the extra cash, so will every other company on the planet.

Caveat emptor...

dewke

Re:I live in California

[Darth Maul]

I think it's funny the mindset the gov't has gotten us into. If we get a refund, we think we're getting money from the gov't. If we have to pay, we think it's so unfair we're having to pay the gov't.

Fact of the matter is, you pay both ways. Just in the former case you overpaid (free loan to the gov't), and in the latter case you didn't pay enough (not a free loan though, you may get penalized).

Automatic payroll deduction is one of the nastiest tricks the over-sized government has pulled on us! If we actually had to write out checks each year for the full amount we're *actually* paying, the government realizes there would be a tax revolt that very year. But take out a little each check, and no problem.

What's that example with the frog? ;-)

Meanwhile....!!!!

[mikosullivan]

... City of Largo, FL obtains more Linux licenses than it needs!!!! Mistake costs them.... um, nothing.

Oh really?

[jhines0042]

He added, "This is a mess. And it's not one we need to sweep under the rug."

And what kinds of messes DO we sweep under the rug?

Re:at least the government waste

[Tackhead]

> Oracle pays very little in taxes, thanks to our wonderful loop-hole ridden tax system.

Bullshit.

1Q01: $903M income before tax, $320M income tax expense.
2Q01: $1.32B income before tax, $470M income tax expense.
3Q01: $785M income before tax, $275M income tax expense.
4Q01: $845M income before tax, $295M income tax expense.

Your political bias is showing. (OK, so's mine. Guilty as charged. ;-) But corporations pay assloads of tax too.

Re:I live in California

[Geek In Training]

If we actually had to write out checks each year for the full amount we're *actually* paying, the government realizes there would be a tax revolt that very year. But take out a little each check, and no problem.

When you fill out your 1040, it's BLATANTLY OBVIOUS how much you've paid.

For example, an MD friend of mine paid over 100,000 US Dollars in federal income taxes this year. Plus about $30,000 in property taxes, state and local income taxes.

I don't know much about his spending habits, but let's say he put $20,000 in the bank, and spent his remaining $150,000 on taxable goods and services. That means he also paid $10,500 in sales tax in his county. (In this case, he has no car or mortgage payments.)

So at the end of the year, he's paid almost a full half of his income to "the government." That is not American, my friends, that sounds like something the damn socialist frenchies and poppycockers overseas would do. (I love you guys, but your taxes suck even worse than ours. But not much.)

So when my wife's co-workers quit their jobs to raise babies (five of them in the past 18 months) and get public assistance in medical benefits, food, income, subsidized housing, etc... they tell us "The Government is taking care of me! It is great!" (My sister has also done this, twice.)

Bullshit. My father and I are paying for you to sit on your ass and watch Oprah and smoke Menthol Lights next to your newborn. And to get medical care. And to buy orange juice with food stamps so you can save your baby shower money for important stuff... like another carton of Menthols. These idiots think the government just "makes" the money... the clue train never bothers making a stop between their ears.

Sorry to be such a 20-something curmudgeon. Obviously not all people on public assistance are like this; just most of them. Get knocked up by your cousin's boyfriend and skate it out from there. No marriage, no commitment, no work, no worries. And they are OK with it, because the government is taking care of them. And you and I are paying for it. Yes we need social services, but we have bred an entire generation or subculture of people who can now live by the hard work of others who make btter decisions and handle the consequences to their actions without whining.

If you're in the US, and haven't had the pleasure of dealing with people like this yet, take a couple trips to WalMart at 2:00pm and see if you can apply this tale to the runny-nosed crotch-fruit being dragged around by some "poor, bedraggled" mommy. She has a vacant look on her face, you know why? She doesn't have to care anymore. About anything.

Except how to afford that next box of Menthols.