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Oracle Fined For Benchmark Claims

Posted by timothy on from the ratchet-down-to-damn-lies dept.

pickens writes "Information Week reports that the Transaction Processing Council, which sets benchmarks for measuring database performance, has fined Oracle $10,000 for Oracle's ads published August 27 and September 3 on the front page of the Wall Street Journal which violate the 'fair use' rules that govern TPC members by 'comparing an existing TPC result to something that does not exist.' The ads said to expect a product announcement on October 14 that would demonstrate that some sort of hybrid Oracle-Sun setup would offer two-digit performance on the TPC-C online transaction processing test compared to IBM's 6 million transaction per minute result on its Power 595 running AIX and DB2. The TPC Council serves as a neutral forum where benchmark results are aired and compared. 'At the time of publication, they didn't have anything' submitted to the council says Michael Majdalany, administrator of the council adding that that Oracle is free to use TPC numbers once it submits an audited result for the Sun-Oracle system. Fines by the TPC are infrequent, with the last action — a $5,000 fine — levied against Microsoft in 2005 for unsupported claims about SQL Server. 'It takes a fairly serious violation to warrant a member being fined,' says Majdalany."

12 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. I am almost certain ... by neonprimetime · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... that this $10,000 fine will cripple Oracle's ability to compete in the future

    1. Re:I am almost certain ... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The five posters below you seem to have all said the same thing, but I'll reply to you:

      The $10K isn't important. The $10K is there so that when a customer asks an IBM (or Microsoft or whoever) representative about Oracle's ad claiming that they can beat IBM's numbers, the IBM sales rep can say 'they were fined for publishing misleading and unsupported numbers. They don't actually have a machine that gives those numbers' and move on.

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:I am almost certain ... by afidel · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, TPC is a trade organization with all of the major players being members. They actually offer a very valuable service which is independently audited and certified results on vendor neutral benchmarks which fairly accurately reflect real workloads. Any changes from the base configuration of the OS or product have to be documented as does the hardware configuration used and the price of the solution. (including discounts, but you better believe I'm asking for at least their published discount)

      I find that it's a good place to start when looking for solutions as it gives you a good idea of product performance, pricing level for your needed performance, etc. It also can give you some ideas on what tweaks can bring big performance gains as the vendors generally have their best people helping with these type of published benchmarks so the documented config changes can be very useful if they aren't pure benchmark fluff.

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  2. $10k? That's nothing. by Thornburg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if Oracle knew they would be fined $10,000 it was probably still well worth the cost of the fine + the cost of the ad. Not to mention that receiving the fine has gotten them the front page of Slashdot and probably lots of other tech sites as well.

    Value for money, 10 Grand was a steal.

  3. huh? by Nyall · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm an embedded engineer so could someone tell me: is two digit performance better or worse than 6 million per minute ?

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    1. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      By two digit performance they mean two digits followed by 6 other less significant digits.

      Basically >10 million per minute

  4. Re:$10k? That's nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Jesus, since when is commenting that some company got value out of the they paid for a fine make someone a troll?

    It's not like I said "oooh, ouch, $10k will really put the hurt on Oracle" like the other 12 people who posted in the first two minutes.

    (Yeah, that's my comment that I'm replying to as AC... just in case people are still blowing mod points by marking everything in sight as Troll).

  5. It's not the fine, it's the publicity... by Seakip18 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The $10k fine isn't what Oracle is really being hit with. Depending on how serious the TPC is taken by customers or after MS or IBM run their market-o-tron speak on the actual news, this is an easy to use market strategy against Oracle.

    A-queue-the-show....

    PHB: Why should I go with IBM over other solutions like Oracle?
    Marketing guy: Wait, you're serious? Oracle? The company that can't even get benchmarks right, let alone compare them?
    PHB: What are you talking about?
    Marketing guy: Heh. Oracle's benchmarks are being decried by the industry*. You can't trust those snakes that pose as reputable sellers of database products.
    PHB: Oh teh noes! I hate snakes! Let me buy snake repellent from you now!
    *market-o-tron recommends not giving specifics but make broad generalizations.

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    import system.cool.Sig;
  6. Calculated Risk by PingPongBoy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Basically, Oracle takes a calculated risk of a bad reputation vs. making buyers hold off on purchases from competitors for a short time. My guess is that Oracle will be able to produce something living up to the hype.

    Why not have a little excitement and see if a competitor will match what Oracle is predicting? I can bet that in the labs a lot of products do a lot better in some areas than the released versions. Maybe IBM can loosen the reins and run with Oracle.

    Fun in the capitalist sun. Or is that Sun?

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    Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
  7. It will hurt more than you think by Archfeld · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The group that is responsible for selecting DB's for the large scale customers Oracle is after is a relatively small select(*)(pun intended) group of people. I attend a national DB conference every year for going on 10 now and I see the same people. Word like this gets out and around. $10k seems like nothing but the fact of them getting fined gets to the people responsible for the product selection and HURTS A LOT more than a $10K fine. I assure you I will be harrassing the Oracle engineers and sales people about this and ensuring my boss, the one who signs the checks is WELL aware of the issue so he can squeeze oracle like the slightly rotten grape it really is....

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    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
  8. Re:$10k? That's nothing. by HaZardman27 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Looks like somebody beat you to it ^_^

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    Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
  9. Effect on MySQL? by devleopard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A bit misleading, but Microsoft can now say,

    "Looking to implement MySQL? The corporate parent of MySQL was fined for publishing untrue statements about database performance in the Wall Street Journal"

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