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California to Cancel Oracle Deal
ShaunC writes "Back in mid-April, the state of California bought $95M worth of Oracle software, which turned out to include more licenses than the state has employees, at a taxpayer cost of $41M more than necessary. Now, CNet is reporting that the contract is being cancelled. Oracle apparently made a $25K donation to governor Gray Davis' campaign fund after the sale was made, several state officials have been suspended, and a criminal investigation into the deal is already underway."
How does one, exactly, "undo" a contract for millions of dollars worth of software licenses? Seems like a very sticky legal situtation. Especially since "There are some parts that have already moved forward."
And how is CA doing this, when Oracle says "they must have been talking to themselves because we didn't know about it"?
"Oracle apparently made a $25K donation to governor Gray Davis' campaign fund after the sale was made, several state officials have been suspended, and a criminal investigation into the deal is already underway."
If anyone really thinks that a $25k donation would have anything to do with a $95,000,000.00 deal for software, they need to get reacquainted with reality. $25k is nothing unusual. It's a Red Herring, and doesn't belong in an informed discussion on the Oracle/California mess.
If the investigation leads to a finding that the contract was part of a bribe, the contract could be nullified due to being based on a criminal act. The taxpayers will most definitely pay for any multi-million dollar trials, but Oracle may not be able to sue for breach of contract if a court finds the contract was signed for a bribe.
Developers: We can use your help.
To be on topic: this deal was fishy on many fronts:
- More Oracle licenses than state workers
- Not just a third party (Logicon), but a fourth party (Koch Financial Services) was involved
- The contract was signed last May, but the software is still not in use. You spent $95 million to sit on software licenses?
- Finally, the sales tax issue already mentioned
We can only hope that $95 million dollars worth of state officials are ousted.And just how will they do that, when they made an offer to dissolve the contract if the State wished to do so?
You mean, they can't just issue a ROLLBACK?
What the hell were they paying Oracle for, then?!
> All companies make contributions to political fundraisings. This is nothing new or unethical.
s .h tml
It's not very new, but I don't think it's ethical.
A company is legally obliged to maximize shareholder profit. This means that it is effectively illegal for a company to make a decision on ethical grounds. For the donation to be legal anything, they must have reasonable grounds to believe they are getting somthing in return.
The argument that money is speech is rather preposterous, but even if one buys it, it doesn't make corporate political donations OK. If companies had the same constraints, eg if they could be jailed or executed, then maybe they would deserve the same rights as individuals.
http://www.corporatewatch.org/pages/corporation
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Oracle apparently made a $25K donation to governor Gray Davis' campaign fund after the sale was made...
This is true, but misleading, because the money was received by the head of the Dep't of Information Technology, not Davis himself, nor his campaign fund directly. The contract appears to have been completely mishandled, and perhaps manipulated, by the governor's cabinet, the CA Dep't of Information Technology, and its head, Elias Cortez, who's already been suspended pending the current investigations. Cabinet secretaries involved have already resigned, embarassed at their lack of proper review of the contract. There appears to be some malfeasance on the part of software advisors to the state who made money on the deal, and $25K & $50K campaign checks that've been making the rounds to one & all. It's all available in the latest article on the deal. All in all a dirty deal, but I don't see where Davis, even though he was the Governor, could have had any precognition of the stupidity going on in the lower halls of the government before the deal was completed.
Despite GOP willingness to paint with as broad a brush as possible in an election year, Davis appears not to have known much about the deal until it hit the news, about when /. first reported it. Since then, it's been his own office working with the Assembly that've sought to find out what happened.
Think about it. The Governor does not personally handle or approve all software purchases, nor should he. There appears to be quite a bit of crooked behavior on the part of Oracle and the leaders of the CA Dep't of IT, as well as a lack of proper review by those overseeing the department, and Davis is looking into it with the Assembly. If anyone finds evidence that Davis was a part of the deal then sure, nail his ass to the wall, but don't make insinuations there's no evidence for. That just cheapens the discussion, and ignores the fact that it is Davis who began the investigations, Davis who sent in the CA Highway Patrol to stop document shredding at the Dep't of IT, and Davis who's asked for and received the resignations of 3 top cabinet officials for failing to do a proper review of the deal. I don't mind disagreeing on political issues, but corruption in the governor's chair is a serious charge that requires more than non-evidence.
Oh, and his opponent, Bill Simon, saying that the oracle deal takes food out of the mouths of children is rich. This guy wants to gut children's services, make abortion illegal, and stop state tracking of all racial data regarding education, health care, etc. I guess if you don't want to solve a problem, you start by ignoring it.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.