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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."

8 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. $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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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
    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. 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;
  5. 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 ?
  6. 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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    The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.