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Justice Department Joins Fraud Lawsuit Against Oracle
suraj.sun writes with news that the US Department of Justice has joined a lawsuit alleging Oracle of overcharging the federal government for its software products. Quoting:
"In a nutshell, the lawsuit argues that Oracle's government customers — a wide array of agencies, including the State Department, the Energy Department, and the Justice Department itself — got deals 'far inferior' to those the enterprise software giant gave to its commercial clients. The allegations stem from a software deal between Oracle and the federal General Services Administration that the Justice Department says involved 'hundreds of millions of dollars in sales' and that ran from 1998 to 2006. Under the contract, Oracle was required to inform the GSA when commercial discounts improved and to offer those same discounts to government buyers. Oracle misrepresented its true commercial sales practices and thus defrauded the US, the lawsuit contends.
The house makes the rules.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
It's crap like this that really makes me glad I stick with more reputable vendors like Sun.
....that the feds are going to take over?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
therefore they get charged more. This is true for any sales negotiation, private or government.
Of all the people to try and rip off.. The government isn't the best to do it to.
Or in /. terms.. In soviet russia... The government still rips YOU off.
It's never the other way around.. :D
Well, it's about damn time!
If our tax dollars are to be spent, they should be spent wisely. The idea that you can sell goods and services to the government at inflated prices needs to stop. Part of the problem is the government itself not doing their homework until after the fact. The other part is that everyone knows you can screw the government over. So naturally, crap like this happens.
So now that the tax revenue is less, the government is just *now* trying to save money. I'm pleased, and pissed at the same time.
Life is not for the lazy.
Guess they won't be so takeover happy for a while
Looking at things from a purely capitalistic perspective...
If they are charging less for a particular customer, then they are making less money on the sale, so the client probably *ISN'T* their most favorite customer - in fact, their favorite customers would probably be the ones that they could most easily *OVER*charge money to, rather than those they charge the least to.
The contract _should_ have said an equal or lower price than *ANY* of their customers. If it actually used the word "favored" then I think Oracle might be in the clear... legally, if not ethically.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
> US Department of Justice has joined a lawsuit alleging Oracle of overcharging the
> federal government for its software products.
I don't understand. Under what basis can they bring a lawsuit? It is not illegal to treat the federal government the same as all your other customers!
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
...for government employees to practice due diligence.
What comes next is looking for .gov buyers that knowingly bought Oracle's stuff at much more higher than market price... I mean, we in the IT industry KNOW how this deals are made and boy, its not that different from any other .gov market: bullying the competition, corrupting the buyer, thats standard practice in .gov IT, it seems, until now.
NO SIG
It took the government almost a decade to figure out they were getting screwed? Well, at least their promptness is improving.
Indeed. Everyone overcharges the Gov; why? Because the Gov doesn't give a shit what they do WITH OUR MONEY. Why are the suddenly zeroing in on Oracle? If the gov. were serious about keeping track of OUR MONEY they would audit all their contracts.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Actually, if you finish reading the summary, they signed a good deal after all. The contract said that Oracle must inform them of the other deals, and Oracle lied to them. Oracle breached the contract. -That- is why they are being sued.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The question was, were the government employees that signed the deals getting hookers and blow from Oracle Marketing to influence their decisions? Having worked for Oracle Market, and seeing as how they had no ethical qualms with billing customers for work that was never done, I wouldn't put the practice of outright bribing decision makers above them. On the other hand, I have no actual evidence that bribery occurred.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
My guess: Not enough hookers and blow.
The reason Oracle is being singled out is because they don't have enough connections in this section of the Government (Read that as no one involved with this action on the Government side has an incentive to make this disappear). A government contractor should either:
1. Have someone on the purchasing side with an investment in the company who stands to profit if things go well.
2. Provide "incentive" to make sure things like this don't happen. Hookers and blow...
...making the open source landscape inferior by doing a piss poor job of merely maintaining java code and its community.
I don't know what it is about the government that screems please rip me off. Somehow PPL in government just don't seem to care the same way about money normal businesses do. In every job I've ever been in sales universally tends to get glittering $$$ looks in their eyes when they talk to potential government customers. Breaching contracts is inexcusable and Oracle deserves to be fined for not living up to them but more generally the sentiment that government pays more than normal corporations seems to be spot on in my experience.
My general assumption is that businesses at some level tend to operate in "reality" where you are either profitable or you die (go out of business). Government units even with good management just are not exposed to the environment.
I think you misunderstand.
The government signed extremely good deals (that is, deals that include a clause that says that you will notify us when you make new discounts available to any of your customers, and you will allow us to have those discounts.
The government is now suing, alleging that Oracle has broken those deals.
For the doubting Europeans over in the poll discussion: here's evidence that not all Americans speak English.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You obviously don't understand the reason for GSA contracts. It is not only to save money (though that is good for the government), it is also to streamline the purchasing process.
Once a company agrees to be bound by the terms of the GSA contract, it is no longer necessary to go through the bidding process for each unit purchase (which would require separate contracts for each purchase). It also gives that company a competitive advantage over any company that does not enter such an agreement.
If the Department of State needs additional licenses, they simply submit a purchase order. Same with the Department of Justice. It is not necessary to complete a request for quotation, submit it for review, get a sales manager out to negotiate etc.
Result: quick turnaround on orders at best possible price.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
...and not providing large enough kickbacks.
If the gov. were serious about keeping track of OUR MONEY they would audit all their contracts.
All of them? Do you know how many contracts the government has? A comprehensive audit of all of them would probably require even more effort than all of the existing fraud. Sorry, but while your goals may be noble, it's just not feasible for every single contract to be subject to enough scrutiny to know that everything is fine. It's far better to selectively audit the contracts to watch for patterns and then act.
It's like the police. They could put one on every street corner...or just have enough to make people behave.
i ANAL, yeah that's how who i phrase it. but seriously could a private corp. put this in a contract and have it stick? can't they set a fee and then if the cost of service gets lower say fuck you?
Really? Is this new? Comcast does this to consumers all the time, but I can't go out and fine anyone. And can you really get a fair day in court against the fed? I don't think so. Shame on Oracle for taking advantage of the blind bureaucracy, and shame on the federal government for expecting special treatment.
Don't steal, the government hates competition...
I was playing Baldur's Gate last night and just learned the Oracle spell on my Chaotic Evil Mage.
As far as I can tell, it does absolutely nothing. Not a god-damned thing.
I feel like suing too. I'd shoot the Orc Mage I got it from, right in the head with a crossbow, but I already did.
Government wants to pretend its like the private world in so many ways, especially at reelection time, but then it goes off and does something like this. And they wonder why they get taken advantage of. Ugh.
I am SOOOO goddamned sick of this attitude that government is somehow incompetent by its very nature. Governments are comprised of PEOPLE. Companies are comprised of PEOPLE. Both are equally competent at fucking up finances!
Private companies do it all the time - take a look at BP, Enron, and every other company that's managed to go out of business. Hey, even I managed to get in trouble with the IRS and my business is both highly profitable and growing fast!
Why do we somehow assume that Government is like a 3 year old and that we can't expect anything more than "hold them accountable" when they inevitably fark it up? Why not just admit that if your local town is horking up the finances, that the people running the show maybe could use some training and education, and then, if that fails, fire them?
In the United States, governance is paralyzed and ineffective to the degree that it is because NOBODY is willing to work WITH their government and spend all their time trying to beat it up.
It's just sad one of the freest, wealthiest societies in human history, and a government truly designed to serve its population, and all the population does is sit around and whine about how horrible it would be if their government actually tried to make their life better and call it "socialism".
Sad...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Not enough hookers and blow
Whoa, wait a minute. Do you work for HP?
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
Choosing to bring a lawsuit is purely discretionary for the U.S. Government. Clearly, somebody in the White House or DoJ has decided that Mr. Ellison has spent too much money on his yachts and not enough on Democratic Party campaigns. Once he gets his priorities straight I'm sure the Feds will lose interest in carrying on the lawsuit.
And no, it's not blackmail when the government does it, by definition.
In the business world, the vendor is not required to inform you of what deals they may have closed with other clients and whether those customers got a better deal than you did. Why should the government expect that firms act against their own self interest merely because they government tells them that they should? If government agencies feel that they haven't gotten a good enough deal then maybe the people in charge of negotiating in those agencies need to be a bit more assertive and demand a better price next time; the squeaky wheel gets the grease after all. Laws like this just enable government negotiators to be lazy because they can alter the deal, "darth vader" style, after the fact when they realize that someone else just got a better deal than they did. The government should quit whining and negotiate better next time. It seems that Oracle delivered exactly what they said they would at the agreed upon price. If the government didn't like that price, why did they agree to the purchase in the first place?
I wonder if this is the first post to get 'Troll' for bashing the government, regardless if I missed the part where Oracle did break the contract. Refreshing!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.