Oracle Sued For 'Extortion, Lies' By Montclair State University

angry tapir writes "Montclair State University is suing Oracle in connection with a troubled ERP (enterprise resource planning) project. Montclair's complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, states that Oracle made an array of 'intentionally false statements' regarding the functionality of its base ERP system, the amount of customization that would be required, and the amount of 'time, resources, and personnel that the University would have to devote.' 'Ultimately, after missing a critical go-live deadline for the University's finance system, Oracle sought to extort millions of dollars from the University by advising the University that it would not complete the implementation of the ... project unless the University agreed to pay millions of dollars more than the fixed fee the University and Oracle had previously agreed to,' it adds."

Comments

It's not lying

[s_p_oneil]

It's not lying, it's marketing and/or sales.

Re:It's not lying

[ByOhTek]

Agreed. I've read a lot of product white papers, and they manage to say what sounds like a whole lot, but when you read it, you find out it isn't actually saying anything much really. That doesn't account for the incorrect estimates though.

Re:It's not lying

[fsckmnky]

It's not lying, it's marketing and/or sales.

Right. Just like how the universities tell everyone how much better their lives will be, if we all just go $60,000 in debt and sign up for classes.

I find it ironic that the institutions that aggressively market themselves, seem to be highly susceptible to the marketing of like institutions.

That said, if Oracle did indeed promise, under contract, to complete project X for Y amount of money, and it's not complete, then good for Montclair. Get the funds back, or make Oracle finish the job. Otherwise, it'll be the students or the taxpayers paying for it, at some point, after the risk transfer process trickles down.

Re:It's not lying

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they said, lying. ;)

Re:It's not lying

[kelemvor4]

I find it ironic that the institutions that aggressively market themselves, seem to be highly susceptible to the marketing of like institutions.

My theory there is that they believe the shit they are feeding customers. Since in their minds they aren't lying, they don't think other companies are either.

Re:It's not lying

[ackthpt]

It's not lying, it's marketing and/or sales.

It's voiding a contract.

Happens all the time. Not only one IT projects. This is where you need to write into the contract the clause - "failure to meet agreed upon time and goals will be paid for by the contractor to completion"

Going over budget on public sector contracts has at least a century of tradition behind it.

Re:It's not lying

[daem0n1x]

It they win this suit, it's the end of IT industry as we know it. And construction and other industries, too. Who would have though of this, projects delivered in time and budget? OMFG, we're all going to diiiiiie!!!!

Re:It's not lying

[ibib]

Institutions and companies as well for that matter, REALLY need to learn how to; read contracts and agreements, formulate needs and demands (preferably with help of a third party) and not to trust the seller of a product or service.

How hard can it really be? REALLY!? (If you really wanted and devoted resources to it, that is)

Re:It's not lying

[masternerdguy]

Oracle? Evil? Never!

Re:It's not lying

[v1]

That's why you have lawyers on retainer to hand these to for review before signing anything. They either hand it back to you and say "looks good" or they tear it up and toss it in their bin and say "we need to talk".

Any decent lawyer can spot BS in a contract. Longer contracts just take longer to examine, they don't add a lot of risk of missing something if the lawyer is any good.

I think it's safe to assume that a university has and uses intelligent lawyers and that they have a case. But time will tell.

Re:It's not lying

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no better customer than another salesman.

Re:It's not lying

[CaptainPinko]

The question becomes how long will it take for the culture to shift when it has long become accustomed to underbidding.

Re:It's not lying

[rasherbuyer]

Which is why there is no such thing as a Salesman - only a Professional Liar.

Re:It's not lying

[fsckmnky]

Wow.

Hey guys, I didn't mean to spark a controversy.

That $60k number was pulled out of thin air on my part for illustrative purposes.

Any resemblance to a number in the real world is purely co-incidental.

What I was really referring to, was all the slick marketing universities do in the form of student guides, pamphlets, tours, etc. The # was just there to illustrate "the good life promised" has a cost, same as the "good life promised" by Oracle had a cost.

Re:It's not lying

[BLKMGK]

If you had bothered to read the source article it sounds like the University did just that. Their documentation appears solid as to failures, they had a pretty extensive list of requirements, they used real-life use cases tests for bidding companies to demo against, they documented ALL interaction with Oracle, and it looks like this was a FFP contract that Oracle may have simply underestimated. It's interesting that Oracle stated they had a similar project ongoing for another school that was going well - with FOUR times the resources being applied than this university had available but that this fact wasn't revealed to them. Oracle supposedly demonstrated an applicant management process during their demos and apparently represented this as part of their base capability - then at implementation revealed that it was 3rd party code or libraries that would have to be purchased. Gee, no vendor would ever do that right?

What it will be to a court to decide is if the issues that were run into were as a result of the university or Oracle but the university certainly seems to have documented their case well. Your conclusion that they somehow simply believed and trusted Oracle on this doesn't appear to match up with the source article - perhaps you didn't bother to read it and simply read the sparse /. summary?

Re:It's not lying

[fsckmnky]

Makes perfect sense. For party A to admit party B is full of shit, party A has to also admit they are full of shit too, and that's just too painful and must be avoided at all costs.

Lets do a mental jig and dance that demon away.

Re:It's not lying

[Dishevel]

perhaps you didn't bother to read it and simply read the sparse /. summary?

Perhaps you forgot where you were? :)

Re:It's not lying

[geekoid]

Obvious Dumb ass is obvious.

They did that, and in fact most organization do. They just feel trapped when it goes over budge and way out of scope.

Funny, how no matter how much you add for scope creep Oracle ALWAYS goes beyond, and NEVER fully delivers on all their promises. Never, ever. Ora t least, I couldn't find a case where they delivered as the contract stipulated.

I take oyu you have never been involved in a large ERP implementation?

Re:It's not lying

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on. Any smart business owner writes financial reimbursement clauses in their contract for delays, defects and any incomplete milestones from the vendor on the project.

I've been on several ERP implementations and most (if not all) were delayed; some weren't ever completed. Heck, most DW projects fail due to a company's lack of patience with the long tail to delivery.

Now wearing the other hat, I'm a huge fan of Oracle (mainly the RDBMS) and know they can do a good job a vast majority of the time. There are two sides to every story, hard to say if we really know *all* the details from both parties.

T

Re:It's not lying

[geekoid]

statistically peoples live are better.
Of course, people need to think about why they are going to University. If it's specifically to get money, then Business.

Getting a BA in History has never made a path for a Job. It's fine if you are going on to a masters, or plan no teaching. There are no 9-5 jobs for people writing history.

No university I have ever read about guarantees, you a job, or even implies such a thing. Unlike trade schools.

Re:It's not lying

[smartr]

they documented ALL interaction with Oracle

With a bigger multimillion dollar budget to have document drones documenting everything? I'm not saying Oracle is in the right here, but I believe the article said they initially made a spec with 3200 items, which apparently became a moving target. Perhaps the school should have contemplated a bit more before biting into a massive ERP cookie provided by Oracle. Caveat Emptor.

Re:It's not lying

[Anonymous Coward]

they documented ALL interaction with Oracle

With a bigger multimillion dollar budget to have document drones documenting everything? I'm not saying Oracle is in the right here, but I believe the article said they initially made a spec with 3200 items, which apparently became a moving target. Perhaps the school should have contemplated a bit more before biting into a massive ERP cookie provided by Oracle. Caveat Emptor.

I've seen enough outside-development efforts to make a connection between projects doomed-to-failure by nonsensical, self-conflicting requirements that might as well be described as schizophrenic and the goldmine for outside vendors. Internal resources don't want to touch it because they know it's fraught with peril. They might have even tried to dissuade them from a useless endeavor. But it's a convenient way to have someone outside the organization to point towards for your own failures.

Re:It's not lying

[gstoddart]

I'm not saying Oracle is in the right here, but I believe the article said they initially made a spec with 3200 items, which apparently became a moving target.

True that the article said they made a spec with 3200 items, but the article doesn't say that spec became a moving target. MSU wasn't changing their requirements (at least, TFA doesn't say that).

It seems to suggest that the demo Oracle presented which showed that it could meet "95 percent of MSU's business requirements" out of the box:

Before it won the bid, Oracle also conducted live demonstrations of its software that used test scripts prepared by the university. One demonstration involved "a robust on-line application process for Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions ... that it falsely represented was an existing part of the base system and satisfied the University's requirements," the complaint states.

But in fact, "Oracle's ultimate implementation plan was to sell the University a third-party product called 'Embark' to satisfy those requirements, suggesting the initial 'live' demonstration was rigged," it adds. A "substantial" amount of customization was needed in the end, according to the complaint.

I've seen demos in which the vendor is claiming that the software already does the things you need it to, only to find out that what we actually got shown was an add-on component we'd have to buy, as well as a large amount of customization we'd be expected to pay for. In other words, the demo was pure bullshit, and we called them on it. It also means that the estimate they provided didn't actually include the functionality you said was mandatory ... you get some fraction of that, and they expect you to pay for what they didn't provide you. They just don't tell you until after the fact that they didn't sell you what they told you they were going to.

It's like being shown a car, only to find out that it doesn't really come with an engine, the transmission hasn't been done yet, and if you try to use the wipers something will catch fire.

Not saying Oracle did all of this here ... but it's far from unprecedented for the demo you get shown that 'proves' you meet all of the criteria has a bunch of huge gaps in it the vendor has no idea of how to address. At that point, it's hard not to see it as a little fraudulent.

Re:It's not lying

[Brett Buck]

Only if you decide to study something painfully stupid. If you spend significant money acquired via a loan on a degree in LGBT studies or Russian literature, well, thats your mistake, not the college. It's entirely up to the individual to see if that is a good investment. Don't blame the costs, you know what it costs before you sign up.

Re:It's not lying

[ackthpt]

The question becomes how long will it take for the culture to shift when it has long become accustomed to underbidding.

Underbidding isn't the correct term here, it's Lowballing - bidding less than it will cost, in time and resources, knowing you can hem and haw, later, and sprinkel phrases like 'unforeseen circumstances', 'overcoming institutional obstacles', etc. to bamboozle people into writing futher cheques. And why not? What board or committee overseeing the project is likely to be led by people with the stones to stand up, rather than just say, 'well, we don't want to be blamed for the project not being completed, gee...'

Companies now probably have a psychological bidding consultant on retainer, they can use to analyze their prospective clients in advance, to see how much they think they can get away with later.

Re:It's not lying

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, how no matter how much you add for scope creep Oracle ALWAYS goes beyond, and NEVER fully delivers on all their promises.

Nobody chooses Oracle for anything more than database because of it's quality. It's chosen because it's "Oracle" and spending big bucks on a big player shows clueless upper management that you take it seriously. THAT's the reason why Oracle has been snapping up all sorts of other companies and technologies, so they can position themselves as a top-tier vendor in market segments where, really, they're 3rd string.

Obvious Dumb ass is obvious.

Nah, just ignorant, not everyone has had the pleasure of working with them.

Re:It's not lying

[The Man]

Right. Just like how the universities tell everyone how much better their lives will be, if we all just go $60,000 in debt and sign up for classes.

I find it ironic that the institutions that aggressively market themselves, seem to be highly susceptible to the marketing of like institutions.

That said, if Oracle did indeed promise, under contract, to complete project X for Y amount of money, and it's not complete, then good for Montclair. Get the funds back, or make Oracle finish the job. Otherwise, it'll be the students or the taxpayers paying for it, at some point, after the risk transfer process trickles down.

No university offers a fixed-price guarantee of a better life. The cost of courses is almost never fixed, nor is the cost of books, lab fees, supplies, etc. that are specific to your course of study. And of course nothing about the results is guaranteed at all; you may or may not get a degree, depending on whether you choose to pursue one and how well you demonstrate mastery, and of course a degree is no guarantee of a better life in any tangible way. The university is offering to teach you something and provide a structure and environment in which you're more likely to learn it well. That's all. Your attempt to draw similarities here and tar both parties with the same brush is laughably weak. If you had a contract from a university that said for $60k we guarantee you will have a job that pays at least $X for at least Y% of your life between now and age 65, you would have a case. No one is that stupid.

Here, however, there was a contract in place that specified the requirements and expected results and the fixed price the university was willing to pay Oracle. Oracle signed the contract, then, apparently, failed to deliver on those specific performance expectations laid out in the contract. No one can say whether they'll win it, but they do have a case. Marketing and sales is what is *said*, a contract is what is *put in writing and signed*. It's not at all unusual for the two to be very different, and in general a company can't be held liable for the claims it makes in marketing materials and sales pitches unless they meet strict criteria for deceptiveness. The UK seems to have the broadest powers to police deceptive claims; it's rare in the US. But a contract, well, that's a different story. And it's the story here.

It's not at all surprising that Oracle overpromised, underdelivered, and then failed to disclose that more money would have to be spent to achieve the customer's goals. While many vendors engage in the occasional unscrupulous practice, Oracle is at the very bottom of the heap when it comes to sleaze. The company has repeatedly shown that it cares nothing for its customers, employees, or shareholders (except for Larry), and has complete disregard for the laws of the countries in which it operates. Its corporate culture is built entirely on backstabbing, deception, and ass-kissing. Montclair State's experience is far more typical than atypical when it comes to doing business with Oracle; a similar series of events involving the State of California received national publicity recently as well. But what is surprising here is that these cases are being litigated; Oracle's lawyers are numerous, effective, and almost completely in control of everything the company does. As an Oracle employee, you can't take a dump in the men's room shitter without getting approval from Legal and Rev Rec. It will be interesting to see how this plays out; Oracle will almost certainly come up with something they put in the contract that gives them an escape. It won't be something technical, because the people in charge over there don't know anything about technology, so it'll probably be some kind of loophole or exception clause. So while I have no doubt that the university was wronged, I expect that their lawyers will have been outlawyered by Oracle's legal army. It seems to be the way these cases go; that is after all Oracle's entire business model. The company could not exist on the merits of its products, the ability of its engineers, or the integrity with which it treats its customers. Why anyone does business with them is beyond me.

Re:It's not lying

[MarkvW]

It is way less about spotting BS in a contract, than it is about two other things:
(a) anticipating eventual outcomes. Sometimes you need to hire multiple experts just to anticipate all the crap that can go wrong, so that you can provide for it in the contract; and
(b) getting the client to a point where the client will walk away if it doesn't get what it wants. Sometimes clients get seduced by particular vendors and it is very hard to explain in non-legalese how the contract could end up leaving them high and dry.

Re:It's not lying

[fsckmnky]

Your attempt to draw similarities here and tar both parties with the same brush is laughably weak.

It was not my intention to imply as you have inferred. My apologies if you have inferred my intentions incorrectly.

You can read my explanation of the post, and response to the resulting controversy, at the following link:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2575828&cid=38383388

Have a great day.

[Coupon ... Clip this coupon and take it to the blacksmith shop on the corner of Walk and Don't Walk for a 10% discount on axe grinding services.]

Re:It's not lying

[steelfood]

Which is why it's important to maintain a relationship with a known honest vendor. It's not just to support that vendor per se, but also to minimize the risk involved in consulting a different vendor for future projects.

It's not surprising that people get away with these things. Management is usually not competent when it comes to discerning the BS from the truth at such a low level. They're typically too removed from the technologies involved, and too concerned with other things such as budgets and service agreements. And many people don't realize that a software demonstration is not necessarily indicative of the cabilities of the core product, but of the potential of the core product. Ensuring that the potential featured becomes a capability is a part of the contract negotiation process.

That's why it's important to have actual senior developers, or low-level managers, involved in the process. People who work with software will be able to tell what the software can conceivably do, and what it cannot do, especially within a given timeframe.

Not that I'm saying MSU is in the wrong here. But the lack of general expertise in the area makes them susceptible to such fraudulant practices. It's like walking around with your purse hanging in the back and the zipper open, with the wallet on top.

Re:It's not lying

[gstoddart]

Not that I'm saying MSU is in the wrong here. But the lack of general expertise in the area makes them susceptible to such fraudulant practices

I will be curious to see how this plays out ... documenting everything to be able to say that Oracle lied to them about the capabilities of the software and then demanded more money ... well, that might make them less susceptible to these fraudulent practices.

If Oracle really did lie to them and try to play a shell game whereby they expected the university to pay extra for functionality they were promised was already there ... well, I'd like to see Oracle held to account for that one.

As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I once worked with one a project with some Oracle software which didn't do half of what they claimed it did. I certainly believe the university was sold a bill of goods, only to have Oracle turn around and say "well, it doesn't really do that, this part is an add on you have to buy, and we really have no idea how to do this part, but if you wait for the next revision we're sure we can figure it out".

Sadly, I've seen software sold with half truths and bald-faced lies before. Why it hasn't led more of them into court, I will never understand.

Re:It's not lying

[fierce]

It's not surprising that people get away with these things.

No, it is not surprising that corporations get away with these things in the United Corporations of America©.
FTFY.

Re:It's not lying

[BitZtream]

I'd like to add too that, that now days, no one buys Oracle for databases anymore.

They seem to think their software has to feel like its still the 70s in order for it to be good software.

Theres really no reason to pick Oracle over the alternatives other than 'Yes boss, I bought Oracle and paid WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too much money for the license'

Re:It's not lying

[Ex-Softie]

In the late 90's I was CTO for a major company. We had to upgrade Oracle DB and Financials due to Y2K requirements. The upgrade repeatedly failed in testing. All work was done by Oracle Consulting. The cost overrun was almost $500k, and it was subsequently uncovered that the problem was an Oracle bug that stomped its own memory, causing database corruption. They refused to refund the costs despite its being Oracle's fault. So I can well believe that the university in this case was duped.

Re:It's not lying

[alexborges]

AAAAHAHAHAHAHA....

"Which is why it's important to maintain a relationship with a known honest vendor"

Oracle? Hahawhawhahaha. I...I..... waaaahahahahha. Oh man, im crying and loling now!

Re:It's not lying

[scot4875]

Right. Just like how the universities tell everyone how much better their lives will be, if we all just go $60,000 in debt and sign up for classes.

No university came beating down my door to try to get my money. Society at large already does a pretty good job of conditioning kids that "you gotta go to college; student loans are good debt."

--Jeremy

Re:It's not lying

[s73v3r]

At the same time, if I have an agreement that says I will pay you $X, and you will deliver Y product by Z date, then you damned well better do it, and not extort me for even more money when you slip the date. If anything, it should be cheaper now, as Oracle broke the contract.

Re:It's not lying

[s73v3r]

Sadly, I've seen software sold with half truths and bald-faced lies before. Why it hasn't led more of them into court, I will never understand.

The sellers generally have deeper pockets and more lawyers.

Re:It's not lying

[s73v3r]

Even that's not going to help in these situations. I would imagine the Oracle representative, when faced with the conclusion that the project wasn't going to work was of the mindset, "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

Re:It's not lying

[roc97007]

It doesn't really matter. You can put all the non-performance clauses and deadline clauses you want, and the vendor will miss them if they think there's more money to be made. It's no skin off the vendor's nose, because in the great majority of cases, the customer will knuckle under and pay more for reduced scope in order to get business going again.

In summary, as customer, your expert would tell you yes, this is an iron clad contract, and no, when push comes to shove, it won't matter.

Re:It's not lying

[roc97007]

You're exactly right.

It's no surprise at all that there was a similar project going well at another school at four times the price. If there's more money to be made, the PS team is guaranteed to miss the deadline, then propose a solution at a higher price. It's the way business is done in that market.

I'm thinking that the university might fare ok in court were they a law school, but as they are not, and presumably have to hire a legal team, they're going to pass the point of diminishing returns very quickly and will soon be under pressure to settle.

Re:It's not lying

[lgw]

I've never heard anything good about Oracle, not about it's products, or it's consulting, or about the company as a place to work. I'm just baffled why people do business with them - are their salesdrones really that good?

Re:It's not lying

[Swave An deBwoner]

Sadly, I've seen software sold with half truths and bald-faced lies before. Why it hasn't led more of them into court, I will never understand.

At least in part because

(a) taking a corporation to court to enforce a contract costs more money, possibly even more than the contract breach itself and

(b) the people who understand what was promised and what was actually delivered have to be able to convice the executives in their own corporation that "equal << promised". Those who can sue on behalf of the wronged corporation often don't understand the technical issues and may even believe that their own technical staff was at fault for not adequately specifying or monitoring the contract.

Re:It's not lying

[Swave An deBwoner]

Um, that should have read: "delivered << promised"

Re:It's not lying

[garyebickford]

Heaven or Hell - that was the demo.

Re:It's not lying

[Lotana]

Even if there are a lot of reasons to hate them, one fact just can't be ignored: Oracle got the best database solutions for when you got a big enterprise system to run. Probably the only other alternative is IBM, but they got their own horror stories.

Re:It's not lying

[Anonymous Coward]

You must redline a contract before signing it. I've been at a few businesses that do it when hiring vendors. You need to be able to protect your self from a CYA contract with terms you cant back out or overrates that wasn't your fault.

Re:It's not lying

[dave87656]

I've read a lot of product white papers, and they manage to say what sounds like a whole lot, but when you read it, you find out it isn't actually saying anything much really

RTA, the article describes how specific functionality was demonstrated as part of the base system but was actually a third party product. They were forcing the University to pay more for functionality that was explicitly promised as part of the base package.

Re:It's not lying

[lightknight]

Professional liars are always surprised to find others in the same industry as themselves.

Re:It's not lying

[JasterBobaMereel]

Simple Solution make the penalty clauses outweigh the enhanced sale ... and miracles will happen, or the company who really cannot deliver wont tender ...

Re:It's not lying

[roc97007]

You don't understand. In order to collect on penalties, you have to sue the vendor. Even if you "win" you'll still be out of business. They have more legal resources than you, and are more skilled at using them.

Re:It's not lying

[roc97007]

In fact, I would say that legal resources are their core competency, as they are so important to the business model.

Re:It's not lying

[lgw]

Maybe once long ago, but who still uses big centralized databases these days? I understand why Visa does (but I think they're still on mainframes), but for most large jobs, it's just better to shard into reasonably-prices small DB servers (or the logical extension of that, the 1000 node Hadoop farm, or Google's approach).

Mainframes will be with us forever, but the day of the "minicomputer" - big expensive server that had better not fail - is firmly in the past.

Re:It's not lying

[HereIAmJH]

You buy Oracle for databases because corporate decision makers believe it's the only DB that can truly scale. Then you buy Toad so you can actually use it.

It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously... what did they expect?

Re:It's Oracle.

[erroneus]

People and organizations have to learn the hard way... on an individual basis. Oracle is everywhere and is quite visible. People who don't understand make some presumptions and follow the "nobody ever got fired for buying...[usually Microsoft, but in this case Oracle]" notion and try to make the safest decision possible.

My first knowledge of Oracle's personality came to me when I learned they price their software based on the performance of the hardware you are running it on. So the more expensive the hardware you run, the more expensive Oracle's software becomes. Something strikes me as terribly wrong with that model. (And yes, I know other vendors do this too... still strikes me as wrong. If you want to upgrade your hardware, suddenly you are in violation of your software license?) Once I learned they were willing to exploit [tax?] people and businesses who are able to spend more or require better, I learned all I needed to know about Oracle and their mindset. They don't price and value their product on their own merits, but on the merits of who, how and where it is to be used. If McDonald's operated this way, the results would be interesting wouldn't they.

Re:It's Oracle.

[john82]

What did Montclair expect? Let's see: Legally binding contract. Contract not met. Customer sues for breach of contract.

Seems to me that Montclair has the upper hand here. It all falls on the conditions of the contract.

Re:It's Oracle.

[HerculesMO]

We are running a SAM project here (software asset management) and Oracle is one of our biggest offenders. They have the most weird, complex, and obnoxious licensing terms in their contracts, but the problem is we USE IT A LOT. I'd happily suggest people to swap off, but since I'm far from a DBA my word carries no weight, and even if it did, there's a lot of politics in play that keep it planted firmly.

I am hoping that after the discovery of this project and seeing how much money we piss away on Oracle (needlessly), that people's eyes will open. This behavior really is just much of the same from this company.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Again. Oracle. What did they REALLY expect? Maybe the administrators should have gone to a better school.

Re:It's Oracle.

[jbolden]

You should have seen Oracle's pricing in the mid-late 1990s. I always feel like comparatively they are giving it away.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally depends on what the contract says. What if the university didn't allocate the resources specified and changed the scope originally agreed upon? Could be the millions Oracle is asking for is because things the University agreed to weren't there to meet the timelines.

Granted having been through a deployment of Peoplesoft at a University I can say it was the most messed up deployment and so unstable it was nearly immpossible to register for classes. My sister had to transfer out because the system going down so much made it so she wasn't able to get into classes she needed (it took so long and was down so much that lower year students were able to start registering for the classes at the same time and filled them up on her) Thank goodness the school of engineering did a work around... They used paper and had workstudy students key in the classes for you when the system did come back up.

Re:It's Oracle.

[dnaumov]

They don't price and value their product on their own merits, but on the merits of who, how and where it is to be used. If McDonald's operated this way, the results would be interesting wouldn't they.

No, you are confused. Noboby in their right mind prices their products based on their own merits. You price your products based on what the market will bear and pocket the profit. Economics 101.

Re:It's Oracle.

[kelemvor4]

Again. Oracle. What did they REALLY expect? Maybe the administrators should have gone to a better school.

It sounds to me like they expected Oracle to honor the contract or pay damages for violating it.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

It might combat obesity - the fatter you get, the more expensive your fix becomes.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously... what did they expect?

Actually, because it's Oracle, the school documented all of Oracle's lies & misrepresentations.

Larry is going to have to cough up some serious cash (pocket change to him) for this one...

Re:It's Oracle.

[Curunir_wolf]

PeopleSoft (before Oracle bought them) had an even more draconian pricing model. It was based on total gross revenues. They even require specific documentation and audits of your income. This sounds so much like an organized crime racket I'm stunned they got so large doing it.

"Okay, so how much with this great ERP system cost."

"That depends. How much do you make?"

Re:It's Oracle.

[MarkGriz]

"oracle: a person giving wise or authoritative decisions or opinions "

Maybe it's time for a new corporate identity.

Re:It's Oracle.

[truthsearch]

Microsoft currently charges about $10,000 per processor for SQL Server. They've had this pricing model for over a decade and still companies shell out the cash. Always amazes me.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh

Re:It's Oracle.

[HalAlpha]

Exactly, this has also happened before - the California State University system is suffering from a huge project implementing PeopleSoft - it's still not done after 14 years, but no one wants to talk about leaving PeopleSoft because of the tremendous amount of sunk cost.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2003-03-12/bay-area/17480072_1_csu-peoplesoft-significant-investment

Re:It's Oracle.

[geekoid]

The expect them to live up to the contract; which is the correct thing to expect.

Re:It's Oracle.

[LeopardSeal]

Actually it's $7,171.00 for the Standard edition. And compared to DB2 or Oracle it is a bargin. You get unlimited connections to the database and the license is for physical processors, not cores.

Re:It's Oracle.

[kotj.mf]

I'd love to pay $10,000 per processor for Oracle. List price for Oracle DB, Enterprise Edition, is something like $47,000 per CORE.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

You price your products based on what the market will bear and pocket the profit.

Combine that with patent system abuse and we'll get worse products with higher prices and no way around them. Capitalism Fail 101.

Re:It's Oracle.

[truthsearch]

I just priced it out last week for enterprise level at $10k. It's absurd to pay per processor when you get the same exact features, functionality, and support.

Re:It's Oracle.

[marcosdumay]

I've already decided to not migrate somebody out of MS-SQL.

All the problem is lock in. Corporations invest a lot in custom software, and not all programmers are good enough to write DBMS portable code, sometimes you need that 1% of extra performance and use DBMS specific tricks, or people simply use the builtin tools of their IDE and language, that happen to be made by the same company that makes the DBMS. Anyway, the end result is that some of the code can only run on a specific DBMS Not most code, but some of it.

Now, how do you migrate? You can rewrite the DBMS dependent code, but that would be a huge project, and all your personel is already busy working on things you need NOW, not later. You can't just migrate the DBMS agnostic code, not even if entire systems are agnostic, because all the systems talk to each other, and you can't migrate just part of the data.

All that evaluated, my conclusion was that the licensing of MS-SQL was cheap enough to not warrant a migration. And efforts to reduce licensing costs (of what one of the biggest is auditing) were better applied on other domains (with emphasis to application development, that would reduce the lock-in at the future).

Re:It's Oracle.

[marcosdumay]

Yes, they were delusional.

Re:It's Oracle.

[scot4875]

Always amazes me.

I spy someone who's never dealt with a database vendor before.

--Jeremy

Re:It's Oracle.

[hawkinspeter]

Oracle Standard Edition is similarly priced. We've got a license for up to 5 CPUs, (although you can only use 4 CPUs in a Standard Edition grid) and we don't pay much more than that. It's also unlimited connections to the database. There's some features missing in Standard Edition (no bitmapped indexes), but it seems designed to compete with MS SQL Server.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like Postgresql's pricing model better. It costs $0 per processor and does the same job as MSSQL and Oracle.

Re:It's Oracle.

[BitZtream]

I didn't know 'Economics 101' was a synonym for 'greed'.

Plenty of people price based on actual value, not how much they can rip someone off.

Not everyone lacks honor.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

See you missed it, it's an acronym.

One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.

Re:It's Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Per processor licensing is very attractive depending on your situation. I have 1700 users supported by two dual CPU boxes (hex core, which doesn't affect the license). It would have set us back over $260k for server licenses and CALs. We were quite happy to only spend $29k using processor licensing (Std is only a bit over $7k per CPU, if you can do what you need to in only 64GB of memory).

Re:It's Oracle.

[erroneus]

But now you know. Greed has been celebrated as a trait of the strong, healthy and powerful. The 80s celebrated "looking out for #1" and all manner of other things selfish and short-sighted.

These ideals do not offer anything sustainable and presently, that mindset has been taking its toll on the world's economy. They still can't bring themselves to believe they were wrong and that greed has been at the core of the reason the world is in the state it's in today.

One of this morning's stories is about large amounts of methane gas being released into the atmosphere as ice which had been frozen for thousands if not millions of years is now releasing the gasses which may have been responsible for extinction events on the earth in the past. My first thought was "and is anyone going to change the way they do business as a result of this news?" The answer is easily "no." There is simply too much greed and fear of loss to stop and change what we are doing.

I am convinced that this is how the end of the world will happen... well, "end of the world" for humanity anyway... the world will live on as it always has... heal itself awaiting the next dominant species... the last of us will be reduced to huddling in caves just the way we did millions of years ago with those last few innocent of the knowledge that we did it to ourselves, we knew we were doing it and we kept doing it anyway.

This is why...

[dremspider]

When you purchase something like professional services of a new system, you need to make sure that throughout the process you are receiving and own all the code and documentation and have at least a high level overview of what is going on. Too many people just say "Make this XYZ system for me, heres money to do it" and then expect to be barely involved with the process from there on until the product is done.

Re:This is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, unless the vendor specifically says that up front, everything should be worked out before signing the contract. You don't have to be involved in the making of your car, although that might be nice, as can be done at that new VW factory in Dresden.

Re:This is why...

[cowboy76Spain]

The code has nothing to do with it. Right now Oracle could send its entire codebase to the university yet it would not serve them (they would have to hire people, train them, and do the project)

That said, having been in a lot of projects in public administration, I agree that involment is the key. A lots of higher-ups feel themselves "safe" and think that they have all the time of the world to make up his mind about what they want (and even better, many of them think that they know the entire university and fail to take input from other stakeholders). Off-the-shelf software/hardware is sheldom the culprit when IT project go south.

You have angered the Larry

[Megaweapon]

Pray you do not anger Him further.

Re:You have angered the Larry

[Anonymous Coward]

Cmon, Larry is out there in dire financial straits. He only has ONE SPACE YACHT.

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE LARRY?

Larry Awesome.

[Theophany]

Ellison will rock up to court, invite the judge and jury to party hard on one of his many yachts and justice will be served.

He is just that awesome.

Re:Larry Awesome.

[ae1294]

Ellison will rock up to court, invite the judge and jury to party hard on one of his many yachts and justice will be serviced.

Re:Larry Awesome.

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

You make it sound like Larry will service his honourable justice by giving him a BJ

Re:Larry Awesome.

[gtall]

Nice innuendo. Care to back that up with statistics on how many corrupt judges there are in the U.S.? Or are you just pulling comments out of your ass because they sound good to a post-modern meathead like yourself?

Re:Larry Awesome.

[The Man]

Ellison will rock up to court, invite the judge and jury to party hard on one of his many yachts and justice will be served.

He is just that awesome.

Surely you jest. The jurors?! Those are commoners; they have no place anywhere near His Larryness. And they're unnecessary. Larry already plays golf with the judge every month, so he's already won the case. He'll make sure to pick up the tab in the clubhouse next time, but he's probably already doing that anyway. Don't you know anything about how Oracle operates?

Re:Larry Awesome.

[ae1294]

You make it sound like Larry will service his honourable justice by giving him a BJ

For the right price I'm sure he will.

Re:Larry Awesome.

[Theophany]

Lighten up, dude. It was a joke. What's your problem?

Re:Larry Awesome.

[TangoMargarine]

You say that like it's a bad thing!

The university deserves it

[Anonymous Coward]

Any company/university who believes the sales guys, without doing their own evaluation of the software, deserves to waste millions and millions to implement the software. In my 15 years I've seen this happen more often then not. Ya, it sucks, but let the technical people choose products and negotiate with the vendor instead of the management and lawyers talking to sales guys. You end up with parties that don't really understand the software (sales guys) talking to the upper management and lawyers who have no concept of the work it's going to take to implement. Doomed to fail. Every time.

Re:The university deserves it

[ByOhTek]

This isn't just the sales guys, even from TFS, this is an initial contract that had to have been breached by at least one party, and Oracle is now requiring millions of dollars to fix the issue caused by the breach. The university is claiming the breach was by Oracle, and therefore the university should not have to pay.

Re:The university deserves it

[Joce640k]

Yep. I wonder how many actual programmers were consulted over Oracles numbers for "the amount of customization that would be required, and the amount of 'time, resources, and personnel that the University would have to devote".

A simple "Do these numbers seem reasonable?" might have saved them this embarrassment.

(Assuming they listen to the answer)

Re:The university deserves it

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you NEED the lawyers in the conversation too. A lawyer who understands these kinds of projects (and that is key) is essential to making sure that the contract governing the project keeps both sides on track and accountable. The lawyers can't do this on their own. They absolutely need the front-line input of the tech people to create accurate, workable scopes of work and technical requirements, all which need to be spelled out in the contract(s). Likewise, the lawyers need to received good, detailed business-need specs for inclusion, so there is no question about how the software is expected to operate from a user level. This also goes into a good contract.

The bottom line is, a good contract is a road map to the the relationship between two parties. It lets both sides know exactly what is expected from them and what happens if either one doesn't do what they are supposed to. When all of this is clear, it decreases (by many orders of magnitude) the likelihood that the parties are going to end up at odds over whether one side or the other (or both, for that matter) have failed to live up to their obligations.

Where these projects most often go wrong (from a contractual standpoint) is the failure to properly scope the project in advance and include all of the necessary expectations in the contract itself.

Note: IAAL

Re:The university deserves it

[geekoid]

You're an idiot.

"without doing their own evaluation of the software,"
they did that.

", deserves to waste millions and millions to implement the software"
no one deserves to be taken advantage of.

" In my 15 years I've seen this happen more often then not."
N00b. Did you sue?

" but let the technical people choose products and negotiate with the vendor instead of the management and lawyers talking to sales guys.
yes, because IT is just FANTASTIC at getting deal and dealing with contracts~

"You end up with parties that don't really understand the software (sales guys) talking to the upper management and lawyers who have no concept of the work it's going to take to implement."
I have been through many ERP implementations, and never was IT left out.

Re:The university deserves it

[SlightOverdose]

This is a story I've seen plenty of times on projects I've worked on personally.

90% of the time the problem is a client that won't cooperate with developers, don't understand their own requirements, have a constantly moving target, and are difficult to deal with.

I've gotten pretty good at figuring out these clients before we start, and usually just decline the project if I think it's going to be too painful - but you can't pick them all.

Of course this doesn't mean that's what happened in this case, but I'd wager it was a significant factor.

Bad business practices

[simula67]

Why there are so many cases about bad business practices about Oracle? 1) Oracle not honouring an agreement with HP to continue to support Itanium 2) Oracle failing to file profit returns correctly 3) Oracle sued for 'extortion and lies' I thought legal and management departments where more important than engineering departments in a tech company

Re:Bad business practices

[Rennt]

You are surprised? Oracle used to make Microsoft look like model corporate citizens - and this was back when MS was still a dangerous monopoly hell bent on choking the industry.

Re:Bad business practices

[somersault]

and this was back when MS was still a dangerous monopoly hell bent on choking the industry.

You mean this morning? They're still hell bent on destroying any competitors using any means possible - though their desktop monopoly is thankfully becoming less relevant as the mobile space grows.

Re:Bad business practices

[Rennt]

Their attitude hasn't changed, but their capacity to execute certainly has. They are more threating then dangerous these days.

Re:Bad business practices

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oon Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison...

As someone who works at a university with...

[Anonymous Coward]

Contractors, I will say that this is common place here, and probably at many universities. I think part of it is that many companies think that the government is an infinite source of funds and a deserving target to be ripped off. Another part of it is the bidding mechanisms which are supposed to ensure an unbiased picking of vendors, but has the added "bonus" of tending to favor groups that under-represent their cost, and no real mechanism to enforce them to stick to their estimates.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[Tyler Eaves]

Yea, that's not how public-sector procurement works.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Another part of it is the bidding mechanisms which are supposed to ensure an unbiased picking of vendors, but has the added "bonus" of tending to favor groups that under-represent their cost, and no real mechanism to enforce them to stick to their estimates."

Um, the "real mechanism to enforce them to stick to their estimates" would be the contract. If the wronged party chooses not to seek enforcement of the contract when it's breached, that's their fault.

Yea, that's not how public-sector procurement works.

Actually, this is exactly how public-sector procurement works. If the public employee writes a decent contract, then it gives the legal department exactly the ammunition needed to file a suit like this. It's when the original contract is full of holes, that no-one can enforce anything.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[ByOhTek]

Ahh, I see you've never seen the 'company bankruptcy game"

Unfortunately, companies can't be blacklisted based on their CEOs, boards of directors, etc.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[Curunir_wolf]

Another part of it is the bidding mechanisms which are supposed to ensure an unbiased picking of vendors, but has the added "bonus" of tending to favor groups that under-represent their cost, and no real mechanism to enforce them to stick to their estimates.

Um, the "real mechanism to enforce them to stick to their estimates" would be the contract. If the wronged party chooses not to seek enforcement of the contract when it's breached, that's their fault.

Then you run into the lopsided bargaining position issue. Public sector lawyers are not as good as Oracle's, and they know nothing about technology.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[Anonymous Coward]

But I work in the public sector, and while I'm not involved in contracts, I can tell you, based on meetings I've sat in on and conversations I've had with those who are involved in contracts, that in general contracts are scrutinized very heavily at several levels, and requirements specified in almost absurd detail. That is simply the norm. If Montclair State University didn't do this, that's their fault. If they did, and Oracle didn't deliver, then MSU is doing exactly the right thing.

Did you read TFA? Of course not, this is slashdot...

Montclair had 3200 detailed requirements.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[geekoid]

Absolutely they can. I've seen it. I have also seen CEOs moved on to better opportunity because their presence cost them contracts.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[geekoid]

" Public sector lawyers are not as good as Oracle's,"
bullshit. Public sector corporate lawyers tend t be better then private lawyers.
The tend to know there area better, the tend to be more passionate about it, and they tend to want you to know everything they can tell you.

Private sector make more money, but more money does not, nor has it ever, meant 'better' n an absolute sense.
.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[Curunir_wolf]

I speak from experience, although with a very small sample size. I don't know about universities, but most state agencies can't really hire independent attorneys, they get legal advise from the state attorney general's office. The last IT contract I was involved in was a 4-year, multi-million dollar custom line-of-business application development and implementation effort. After all the negotiations we went through, at the final hour the idiot public sector lawyers agreed to allow the consulting firm to retain all IP ownership rights to the source code we are paying them to develop.

Re:As someone who works at a university with...

[Curunir_wolf]

Private sector make more money, but more money does not, nor has it ever, meant 'better' n an absolute sense.

It's a damn good indicator, though. There is a reason poor people accused of crimes end up in prison and rich people more often get off: More money buys better lawyers.

That's not to say all public sector attorneys (not sure what a "public sector corporate lawyer" is, or what you're referring to, there) are worse than all private and corporate attorneys, but that's the general trend. I've seen too many agreements where the vendor got way too good a deal from a state contract, often due to some complicated technicalities that's difficult to spot. Maybe it's just that all of the lawyers in the attorney general's office are just too busy.

Other side?

[Aladrin]

Of course, we're only hearing 1 side of this. I can easily imagine how this could come to be:

Oracle gives a quote that requires the University do things Oracle's way, on Oracle's timeline. University doesn't. Oracle then quotes a price to fix all the University's mistakes.

I can't for a minute imagine that Oracle wrote a contract for a fixed price that didn't outline exactly what the duties of each side were, and exactly what was covered.

However, I also can't imagine a University engaging in frivolous lawsuits.

It should be interesting to see what the facts are, and how this plays out.

Re:Other side?

[SJHillman]

Having gone to college and seeing how bad they tend to screw things up, I could easily see this being the case. Of course, I went to a state school where you get the double whammy of crappy administration PLUS crappy government requirements. Because microbiology and astronomy totally helped my network admin degree.

Re:Other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle gives a quote that requires the University do things Oracle's way, on Oracle's timeline. University doesn't. Oracle then quotes a price to fix all the University's mistakes.

This I believe. Universities are as slow as the government about accomplishing anything. I have no doubt that the uni missed every target date that was agreed to.

Re:Other side?

[DikSeaCup]

Having worked for a university for 18 years (-1 for the recent year I spent working for corporate America/India) I can easily see how something like that (university not doing things they way a company would suggest) would happen.

Re:Other side?

[sensei moreh]

Because microbiology and astronomy totally helped my network admin degree.Because microbiology and astronomy totally helped my network admin degree.

If you wanted a vocational degree, you should have gone to a vo-tech school

Re:Other side?

[Severus Snape]

Of course, we're only hearing 1 side of this. I can easily imagine how this could come to be:

Oracle gives a quote that requires the University do things Oracle's way, on Oracle's timeline. University doesn't. Oracle then quotes a price to fix all the University's mistakes.

I can't for a minute imagine that Oracle wrote a contract for a fixed price that didn't outline exactly what the duties of each side were, and exactly what was covered.

However, I also can't imagine a University engaging in frivolous lawsuits.

It should be interesting to see what the facts are, and how this plays out.

Nail on the head. It worth noting that ERP projects are extremely difficult to implement and involve basically ripping up the whole entire infrastructure of an organisation and starting again. As well as being very costly and take years to get up and running. Half the time they aren't even worth the hit you take getting it up and running. When everything goes smooth and actually works, it's fantastic your organisation can make strategic decisions quickly and effectively, data becomes transparent across the organisation and systems become integrated. The problem is, this sort of situation that the university is now, is far to common.

Re:Other side?

[b4dc0d3r]

Pracle sells a product that is "capable" of anything the buyer wants. The trick is, it costs more money to make that capability into a functionality. They sell software and customization, with the base software nearly incapable of doing anything. And they try to avoid trining your people on how to customize it, they want to charge for it if possible. This is how Oracle and SAP and any other large services provider really makes their "software" money.

I sell you a copy of the .NET framework saying it can query your schedules and people and preferred times, and come out with a per-person schedule which best fits the peoples' preferences and still covers your hours. Then I say it needs customization, where I actualy write that part. Or copy it from existing modules we made for other customers.

Re:Other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if microbiology and astronomy help in network admin, but I agree with Astrology and Quiropractic. :P

Re:Other side?

[gl4ss]

dunno, tfa has this from oracle: ""When issues arose during the course of the project, it became clear that MSU's leadership did not adequately understand the technology and the steps necessary to complete the project," it stated. "Instead of cooperating with Oracle and resolving issues through discussions and collaboration, MSU's project leadership, motivated by their own agenda and fearful of being blamed for delays, escalated manageable differences into major disputes.""

after that there's stuff like oracle said they already had a product that did 95% of the requirements on the 3200 point requirements letter. then oracle did a fake demo(like so often is done in the business) to demo that it's product did what the university wanted (and actually it seems oracle was going to sell them a 3rd party sw to do the thing, then botched up integration).

the sums we're talking about here are larger than it took for fb to get off the ground too, so it's pretty ridiculous. like really fucking ridiculous sums for the thing actually. and they didn't even get to the phase where it would have been actually working but unable to handle the load...

the oracle sales douches are probably genuinely surprised

Re:Other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pracle sells a product that is "capable" of anything the buyer wants. The trick is, it costs more money to make that capability into a functionality. They sell software and customization, with the base software nearly incapable of doing anything.

Actually if you read TFA, Oracle claimed that the base product covered 95% of the desired & specified functionality.

Turns out the base product covered far, far less than 95%, leading to the lawsuit.

Re:Other side?

[cthlptlk]

There are probably three sides...Oracle, the nitwits who bought the system, and the administrators who are pissed at both of them.

Re:Other side?

[TooMuchToDo]

Half credit. You can learn microbiology and astronomy at no cost to yourself. Also, you can learn IT without having to go to a vo-tech school (I myself dropped out of high school to do IT, and haven't made below $100K/yr for 10 of my 12 working years.

If anything, vocational schools are more valuable, as you're going to be paid more to do a job that can't be outsourced (HVAC, electrician, plumbing, mechanic) vs a job you'd get with a four year degree that can be outsourced to $new_lowest_wage_english_speaking_third_world_country.

Re:Other side?

[sourcerror]

Hate to break the news for you, but university is the new vocational school.

Re:Other side?

[rgbrenner]

From the TFA:

The school spent a year developing a detailed requirements list that ended up totaling some 3,200 items. This list was given to vendors ... ...
The revised complaint also includes a partial list of MSU's project requirements and in all runs 60 pages, nearly twice as many

So they doubled the requirements, and:

At the same time, Oracle was working out a contract with the Lone Star College System to install a similar set of software, it adds. Oracle repeatedly told MSU that the Lone Star project was comparable to its own plans, according to the complaint.

In fact, "the number of personnel and resources available to the Lone Star College System to complete its implementation ... was four times greater than the personnel and resources available to the University to implement its ERP system," the complaint states.

And they dedicated 1/4th number of people needed to implement it.

Now they want a refund... yeah right. The court should toss MSUs case in the trash.

Re:Other side?

[Joe_Dragon]

That is all the crap filler class that just drive up costs and time. network admin degree does not need to be 4 years. 2 years or some kind of mixed tech school + apprenticeship.

Re:Other side?

[Anarke_Incarnate]

I can imagine Oracle screwed this up. If you have ever heard the asinine things that they require you to do, but remain willfully undocumented because they make no sense, it would not appear surprising.

Re:Other side?

[luis_a_espinal]

Because microbiology and astronomy totally helped my network admin degree.Because microbiology and astronomy totally helped my network admin degree.

If you wanted a vocational degree, you should have gone to a vo-tech school

Easy there. I can see intro courses in bio or chemistry as part of science requisites for a AS or BS degree conductive to work as a network admin. Requirements specific to microbiology and astronomy, that's another story. If that's what the poster is claiming (what the context hints), then his remark is actually valid and doesn't necessarily mean he wanted a vocational degree (which, ultimately, there is nothing wrong with that, and the country would be best served - using a German or Japanese model as example - if we put more focus on vocational training as opposed to full-blown 4-year college education.)

Re:Other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't work in IT, do you.

Re:Other side?

[BLKMGK]

They doubled the length of their COURT FILING not their requirements. They revised their court filing to more clearly state their case and in doing so added in pages of requirements to the filing that weren't there to begin with. Further - Oracle used another college as an example of a successful implementation of their project doing similar sorts of work but FAILED to mention the fine print of the fact that the other college was using FOUR times the resources that this one had at it's disposal. There's also an interesting blurb in the article about Oracle demonstrating the system doing application management and representing this as being base functionality when in fact it was 3rd party code that they later wanted the university to purchase at additional cost from the sounds of it....

Is your reading comprehension really that bad or were you biased against the university to begin with? It remains to be seen who's at fault here but it sure doesn't sound great for Oracle right now.

Re:Other side?

[geekoid]

actually oracle does write that kind of contract..and then violates it routinely.

No they get away with it because people want a project to succeed no matter what. IN the private sector, to say it won't succeed can be a career killer. So you get the boar to give you more money because if a 50 million project dies it impacts every one, and everyone's bonus.
Oracle has gotten used to getting away with that.

Re:Other side?

[geekoid]

" using a German or Japanese model as example "
HAHAHAHA.. oh man. Those aren't very good models. I know they there over there, so what they do MUST be better. I suggest you look at the overall impacts to the culture.

That said, for some thing a vocational degree is a great way to go.
If a student wants to work in the trades, then Vocation school can be fine.

Re:Other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

How quickly folks forget that 12 years ago was the tech boom due to Y2K. An enormous number of folks who would not normally have had a chance in IT got in during that period.

Try that today, during a down economy and with no class-rank in a "good" school.

Re:Other side?

[BitZtream]

Yea, all that is well and good except if you bothered to RTFA ... you'd realize that it was the opposite.

The school had requirements and deadlines and met their objectives and Oracle didn't, now they want to charge them more to finish what they already claimed they were going to do.

As such, the university is suing Oracle because they believe Oracle is the one who is breeching the contract.

You don't even need half a clue to know that making an assumption that Oracle is the one in the right is ... well, wrong.

RTFA

Re:Other side?

[Just Some Guy]

Because microbiology and astronomy totally helped my network admin degree.

I too "wasted" a lot of time in sociology, political science, writing, and history on my way to a comp sci degree. Who cares that it helps me understand my government and my country, and enables me to talk to smart people at parties without feeling like a total idiot?

Re:Other side?

[TooMuchToDo]

I just hired three high school graduates to come work for my business (development, tech services, hosting, etc). If they turn out to be good, their employment agreement gives them a bonus and automatic pay lifts to have them earning $60-80K a year by the time their peers in college graduate.

There are still folks out there who will give you a chance in IT without a formal education background; it just might be harder to find and require more networking.

Over-promise, Under-deliver. Standard Oracle...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Instead of cooperating with Oracle and resolving issues through discussions and collaboration, MSU's project leadership, motivated by their own agenda and fearful of being blamed for delays, escalated manageable differences into major disputes."

This certainly reads like code for "We promised more than we could deliver. Instead of giving us more money as we demanded, the university decided to try to force us to deliver on our promises."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Normal for Peoplesoft in higher ed

[captbob2002]

Isn't this standard for their Peoplesoft product? We went through hell with it where I work years ago. Cost around 20 million more than it should have. Some folks lost their jobs, sadly, not the people responsible for that debacle. Ten years and that project is still bringing us "joy."

Re:Normal for Peoplesoft in higher ed

[gstoddart]

Isn't this standard for their Peoplesoft product? We went through hell with it where I work years ago. Cost around 20 million more than it should have.

I worked on a project several years ago involving some collaborative software from Oracle.

The software was not mature enough to be out of beta, definitely not mature enough to be sold to customers, and in the end required vast amounts of resources over and above what we were told it would.

In effect, they were selling snake oil, and they knew it. And, they wanted more money to deliver.

Not saying this is in any way similar to what is happening at this university, but I know first hand Oracle isn't above selling you a product they haven't finished writing yet. In fact, I think it's part of their business model.

Re:Normal for Peoplesoft in higher ed

[Amouth]

why pay to develop a product when your customer will? i think it's part of their vision, much like the government defense contractors.

all MRP / ERP is this way

[Anonymous Coward]

I implement MRP / ERP systems, it's the same story everywhere. Out of box, they are proud the product can save and recall data. BIG DEAL. To get anything useful out of the system is big $$. Look up lawsuits on Epicor, same thing.

Good, bring 'em on

[Rogerborg]

As one of the guys responsible for delivering on salesweasels' promises, I fully support customers being given a realistic appraisal of the time, effort and cost required to get them up and running.

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[L4t3r4lu5]

As one of the guys responsible for delivering on salesweasels' promises,

It's ok, you're allowed to say "Engineer" here. You're amongst friends. :)

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful, you'll offend the butthurt sensibilities of the Professional Engineer crowd who want to reserve that word for themselves only.

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[TheSpoom]

Fuck em. Free speech.

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[ray-auch]

Problem is, unless all your competitors are doing that, you'll stop winning any business and rapidly be out of a job...

Procurement processes, particularly public sector, are all biased towards lowest cost rather than honesty of cost, and box-ticking over real due dilligence, because it's more objective that way. Everyone (unless they are allready bust, or have so much business they can pick and choose - and then have hte nightmare of trying to resource it...) trys to get the deal by under quoting the base price and making it back on change control. Because the customer will always have forgotten something somewhere....

Rock and hard place - you have to keep your salesweasels on short enough leash to prevent the catastophic undersells, but you do have to give them enough leeway to actually sell something.

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[ray-auch]

So change job title to architect. No problem there.... :-)

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[CaptainPinko]

Fuck em. Free speech.

Actually, it's more like misrepresentation of credentials, to which free speech doesn't apply. There are countries where calling yourself a engineer has legal consequences.

Next, I'll start calling myself a doctor (as in "code doctor") or surgeon ("code surgeon"). ;)

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[Anonymous Coward]

When working with finnicky instruments I call myself a "_______ Witch Doctor"

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[Bronster]

Yes, you're a fucking zit doctor. Congratulations.

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[TheSpoom]

It's a misrepresentation of credentials if you specifically mention the credentials or claim to be licensed in a way in which you're not. I am a software engineer. That doesn't mean I'm a civil engineer or licensed in any way. Enjoy being butthurt.

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[BitZtream]

Sadly plenty of morons call themselves doctors.

My wife IS a doctor, and she'll regularly get people who say 'Hi, I'm Dr Blah' so my wife will talk to them like they have a clue about medicine ... and then you find out that its something like a preacher who thinks he's a Doctor because MLK said he was. Or PhD morons who like to call themselves doctor knowing full well no one else in the world things a PhD makes you a 'doctor' (Yes, I know it technically does).

My wife has sense learned that if someone calls themself a doctor, they're more than likely an idiot. Real doctors dont' tell you they are as they don't need to impress you.

Likewise, I'd like to think of myself as an engineer. I try to act like one, the method IS my madness! On that not however, I tell others I'm a software developer as I have not been formally recognized by anyone or any professional standards body as an engineer. It IS insulting to those people who DID put for the effort to qualify for the title.

Every time I hear a PhD of Something Stupid, or a preacher refer to him/herself as doctor I just want to punch them in the face for blatantly lying.

Re:Good, bring 'em on

[toddestan]

Well, if they don't have a job operating a train then they can go screw themselves.

Sigh...this is why I love Slashdot

[kiwimate]

Predictable response from Slashdot:

"Stupid sales/marketing drones. It's Oracle, of course. They should've asked technical support, then they'd get the real answer. These things always take five times as much money as the salesman says."

In January 2012 there will be a story on some major project with high visibility that is suffering cost overruns. Slashdot will respond.

"How can it take so long? That's what you get for hiring Lockheed (or whomever). Here's the solution, it'd take three weeks and cost a tenth the price. Salesmen overselling, get the technical guys in, we'll do it quickly and much cheaper."

Re:Sigh...this is why I love Slashdot

[mwvdlee]

But is it a predictable response because it true?

Re:Sigh...this is why I love Slashdot

[ArsonSmith]

So you agree that the mostly technical Slashdot community consistently points out the ineptitudes of non-technical managers?

Re:Sigh...this is why I love Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's a predictable response because the average commenter on slashdot has never worked on anything more complex than a web site, yet automatically thinks they know how to write every piece of software ever written or yet to be written.

That said WTF is a university doing with an ERP system? It's not like they have CRM or manufacturing or shipping. Of all the goddam departments that actually *should* be outsourced...

Not standard Oracle, standard

[Anonymous Coward]

I know of very few large implementations (ERP, WMS, eComm site) where the project goes on time, on budget, and feature complete. Usually, along the way, one of those is lost. I'd be willing to bet there was a fair amount of scope creep on the University side. I'd really like to hear Oracle's position.

Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson. Teach your kids that one at home so they don't have to pay for it again.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[luis_a_espinal]

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson. Teach your kids that one at home so they don't have to pay for it again.

Bingo. My sister went to a private university (local) all the way to grad school for a STEM degree, and she piled no more than $45K (again, in a private school.) I went to grad school in a in-state university, and my total debt was about $25K. My other sisters went also to in-state schools (biomed, fine-arts, PT) and none racked that much of debt either. The only person I know that justifiably had like $60K in debt was this guy who went to grad school in PT with a lot of specialized training. Medical and law students would be the other camp in which I could see a justification for such an amount of student loan debt.

OTH, people getting into $60K for a degree in History or Social Science is just absolutely retarded. I could understand that debt in those degrees if the student 1) goes to a private Ivy League school, and 2) go all the way for a Ph.D. But for a B.A in those fields?

I mean seriously, I see these shows and interviews with people being burdened with $60K, $80K even $100K and not having a job or a job that pays well to get rid of that debt, and when they get asked what degree they have, we don't hear STEM or law or medicine, we don't hear post-grad education. We hear 4-year degrees in History or Social Sciences. WTF? WTF? WTF??????

Yeah, universities keep racking up the cost of education, but let's not delude ourselves into blaming these institutions when people rack up student loans on 4-year degrees with no market value. There is a difference between a freshman entering school and not knowing what to study, and that same person cruising around for the next 4 years without ever thinking "shit, how is my education going to get me a job with which to repay by debt?" Living life in cruise control is a stupid and costly way of doing things.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Tuition and fees? In 2011-12, public four-year colleges charge, on average, $8,244 in tuition and fees for in-state students. Per year

Books? which at four-year public colleges in 2011-12 is $1,168 per year

You mean you have to LIVE too? The national average in 2011-12 for four-year public college students who live on campus is $2,066 (off campus $1,082) These are expenses that a college student has to pay that a non-student doesn't. Per year

Average cost of a four-year degree at an in-state school for someone living off-campus?

(8244+1168+1082)*4 = $41,976

Did you skip the math classes?

Citation: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/pay/add-it-up/4494.html

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Medical and law students would be the other camp in which I could see a justification for such an amount of student loan debt.

Law school is not worth it. Many recent law graduates are regretting their decision (and their debt) because the legal market dove just as much if not more than the housing market. There aren't jobs. If you want to have >$100,00 of loan debt and work as an insurance agent, go to law school.

In summary, if you are thinking about law school, RUN! RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!! If you are in your first year of law school, and you aren't in a top 10 institution or in the top 10% of your class, cut your losses and RUN! RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!! Student debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy! You will be SCREWED if you stay in!!!!

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Runaway1956]

I'd like to know in what year you managed to complete four years of college for 15 to 20 thousand dollars. That much money wouldn't have paid for basic tuition in several decades. And, that's assuming that your mom and dad lived so close to the university that you could live at home and commute.

http://web.saumag.edu/international/tuition-scholarships/cost/
At SAU, which is your typical "in-state school", 4 years of education is going to cost about $60k. That doesn't include books, of course, or snacks, or any damned thing, except the tuition. Projects, supplies, transportation, a night out once in awhile, toothpaste and soap are all additional.

Maybe you're referring to a vocational / agricultural education, in a local community college? Yeah, you can get by for a whole lot less,

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I got may engineering degree at about 500€ tuition and ~100-200€ in books per year for 4 years?
Happily paid for by my parents of course.
If schooling gets you that much into debt, your doing something very wrong. Perhaps divert some of that bailout money/warmongering money to your education system?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure you have a cost of living regardless of whether you go school or not.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a bubble in education. Universities have all these titles for faculty, vice president of affairs, etc, and they pay outrageous salaries, claiming they have to be competitive. In the meantime, many of the real folks who teach, don't get paid a decent salary. So what happens, tuition goes up. Lots. Even in public universities. What happens, the poor student is stuck with a lot of debt. I've heard that some MD's are now about 300k in debt getting through medical school.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[proud american]

Dont know where you get your numbers from.

USA Today: In 2009-10, average published tuition and fees for in-state students at public flagship universities in the U.S. are $8,353, compared to $7,797 at all public doctorate-granting universities and $7,020 at all public four-year institutions:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-10-20-college-costs_N.htm

Annual in-state commuter student tuition at state schools in my area

Delaware - about 11,500. http://www.udel.edu/admissions/finance/
NJ Rutgers - $12,755. http://admissions.rutgers.edu/Costs/TuitionAndFees.aspx
NY SUNY - $14,750. http://www.suny.edu/student/paying_tuition.cfm
Pennsylvania - 15,000 - 17,500. http://tuition.psu.edu/tuitiondynamic/rates.aspx?location=up

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. My daughter has a full-tuition scholarship at a state school. It still costs about $11K/year. Why? Turns out she actually has to pay rent, buy food, pay utilities, etc. My son, who attends the same school, does not have the scholarship, so it costs him about $16K/year. I don't know where you got your numbers from, but they are far from reality.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[ae1294]

Yes because an 18 year old out of high school understands all that you just said and not that college = high paying job. I'll get off your lawn now...

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

WTH do you find room and board for $90 - 120/month?
Live all year: 1082 / 12 = 90.17
Live just during school: 1082 / 9 = 120.22

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree his number on tuition and fees was a bit low, but 1168 for books? What are you doing, buying them all new from the campus book store? You deserve to be in debt if you don't try to find them used online, then used in the book store, then new online, and then new at the book store, with the possibility of going new online before looking used at the book store. Sorry, but I never paid more than $100 for a book, and I was royally pissed when I had to pay that much. That was only 4 years ago, so don't give me any of the "things have gotten way more expensive" crap.

And as for living, sorry, but if you're having trouble affording to live, do what I did, go to a school close enough to your parents house, and live with your parents. Unless you were a horrible child and they kicked you out, or if they're terrible parents, they'd probably let you live there rent free while you were in school. If any of those concessions seem unreasonable, well, go ahead an OWS, and mock and ridicule you.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

Ah, no. If my kids were not in college they would probably still be at home. As it is, each of them are paying $7200/yr in rent which they otherwise would not be paying. They also pay for heating and utilities which they would not be paying. That is at least $32000 over four years that is a direct cost of going to college.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[gfxguy]

Students can often continue living at home, too. On top of that, if you go to a local college for two years and then finish up at a university you can save a lot of money and your degree stills says you graduated from [insert name of prestigious university].

I'll come right out and admit my stupidity... I moved across country to go to a worse school, pay MORE money PLUS living expenses I wouldn't have had living at home, just to get away from where I lived (not to get away from my parents, who were pretty cool, actually).

Re:Tuition math lesson

[gfxguy]

Rent/Utilities/Food, etc do NOT count - you would have to pay for them whether you went to school or not, so including them as part of the cost of getting an education is disingenuous.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

Assuming, of course, that there just happens to be a school offering the courses you want near your parent's house.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

They certainly DO count. If my kids were not in school, they would be at home. That would make their rent $0 and their utilities close to $0, saving them each approx $8K/year. And, btw, the school they attend is the nearest state school to our home that offers the majors they wanted. It is a 2 hour drive in good weather. Commuting is not an option.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Ameryll]

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson. Teach your kids that one at home so they don't have to pay for it again.

Not sure what in-state university you're talking about. U-Mass Amherst was going to cost me 12,000/year as an in-state student and that was 2000-2004. I have to imagine the price has only gone up since then. In fact http://www.umass.edu/umfa/basics/costs/ says 22k-24k per year for in state students (that's 1k-2k for books and transportation).

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that professors in any demanding program will tell you that you won't have the time to work a part time job, and any attempts to work part time to support your living expenses will only steal time and attention needed for study. Therefore, lost wages due to occupation of time with class and study HAS to be factored in.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[godefroi]

Just got your law degree, huh?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh.. I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers from. I live in Maryland, it costs quite a bit to go to UofMD, Towson or Sailbury for a year. A private school such as Stevenson is about the same.

http://www.umd.edu/catalog/index.cfm/show/content.section/c/49/s/962
http://www.towson.edu/main/finaid/finaidbasics/cost.asp
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1640

http://www.stevenson.edu/admissions/costs/tuition.asp

Are you suggesting to attend community college first then off to the university?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[godefroi]

That is at least $32000 over four years that is a direct cost of going to college somewhere far enough away from home that commuting is not a reasonable option.

There. Fixed that for you.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Colonel Korn]

OTH, people getting into $60K for a degree in History or Social Science is just absolutely retarded. I could understand that debt in those degrees if the student 1) goes to a private Ivy League school, and 2) go all the way for a Ph.D. But for a B.A in those fields?

Both of your points are misguided.

1) Ivy League schools are the best in the country for avoiding debt. The Ivies I know stopped including student loans as part of financial aid. They replaced them with grants. Furthermore, comparing the financial aid offered by an Ivy to the same package offered to the same student at a non-Ivy private school, the Ivies tend to be much more generous. I went to an Ivy before they eliminated student loans, but even then they had a max loan amount of about $20k for 4 years.

2) PhD programs, even in history and other social sciences, don't involve debt. The department pays the student, not the other way around.

A student who goes to an Ivy League school for a history degree and then gets a PhD in the field will have no education-related debt whatsoever.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

They at least partially count. College towns have HIGHER rent often times.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

Well, aren't you just all high and mighty, and a damn fine parent, I'm sure. First I said IN SCHOOL. That generally means they are younger than 22. Second, who the fuck are you to determine what acceptable living arrangements are? Third, you may not be aware of this, but a significant percentage of the population is unable to afford housing through no fault of their own. Many, many, people have extended family living with them, including children (and some children have parents living with them). There is a difference between 'preferred living arrangements' and 'practical living arrangements'. You may be a superb parent (doubtful), but are surely a shitty human being if you think having your kids live in substandard housing, on the streets, or taking on excessive debt just so they have a place to live is preferable to having them live at home.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[TheRaven64]

Books? which at four-year public colleges in 2011-12 is $1,168 per year

Seriously? Do US universities get away with this? I didn't have to buy any books for my degree. Anything that was recommended reading was available in the university library, so the only reason to actually buy a copy was if you wanted to be able to refer to it in the future. I did buy a few books, but most of them were from the second-hand shop on campus so cost £5 or under.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Nadaka]

The world has changed. It is no longer possible for someone to leave home and support themselves as easily as they used to. The cost of living is too high, well paying jobs are to rare, and the low skill jobs that used to be able to support a family of 4 don't pay rent and utilities on a 1 room apartment in a bad part of town much less food.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[SydShamino]

But your kids when to community college for the first two years while living at home, right?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, in '99-'03, my actual cost of college was roughly the cost of an apartment and food (spare scholarship money covered books). In grad school, they paid me about $25k/yr.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[SDrag0n]

Hey, here's the "Things have gotten more expensive" crap. I guess it depends on your idea of crap. I'm going back to college to finish getting my degree at a local public university. I had one class that required 3 books and cost about $250. One band-spanking-new "lab" book, and 2 used textbooks. There is some serious bullshit going on with books, and it HAS gotten worse.

When I was at Purdue in '99, used books cost between $60 - $90 depending and new books were maybe $110. Now the used books cost $110 and are only in use 1 year so you can't even sell the stupid things back. It's a racket.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid $4 per credit hour for a top 10 engineering degree. Total costs per semester for everything school related was under $1000. Rent + food + commuting was more - about $1500/semester.

It took me 5 yrs to get that degree ... that's 10 semesters at $1000 each or $10,000 total. I worked 25 hrs a week at a BBQ place and had ZERO debt at graduation. I had zero grants, zero scholarships, zero family gifts. I'd worked and saved from age 12 for college - mowing lawns, washing dishes, lifeguarding, detassling corn, etc.

I was very selective about the schools I attended. I was admitted to 5 different universities, but choose the least expensive with the best reputation and transfered to the best school the following yr when I became an "in-state" student.

BTW, I dated a girl who got a BA in Psychology. That choice was idiotic, IMHO.

After college, she couldn't find a job and went to a paralegal school. She got a soul sucking job in the basement of a law firm summarizing cases and never actually saw a lawyer. She went back to school to be a speech therapist. After working 5 yrs where she was the only therapist for a huge school system and spent 40 minutes with a student per week, she found someone to marry. I expect she had lots of mommy debt.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Once my children are out of high school, they understand that they're going to have to pay for their life. There's no free ride here. They'll need to have the skills to get a job and work to earn something. University studies haven't changed so much that people can't still work their way through school. I know my son works and attends the University. It does cut into the social aspects of life to have to work and study, but hey, that's how life is. My current job gets in the way of other fun things that I'd like to do. Looking at prices with my daughter that's looking to attend college next year, we made sure we talked about finances and how SHE is going to afford to pay for things.

Now I'm not opposed to helping my kids with college costs, but that cost is not my job. Part of my job as a parent is to help my kids get the life skills they need so they can leave home and function in the real world. I'm not really interested in having my kids free-load off of me for the rest of my life. They need to get a life of their own and they should WANT to get a life of their own and take responsibility for their own life.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is most full time students don't work enough to cover cost of living, so it ends up adding to debt either thru credit cards or student loans.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of you idiots do nothing but complain for the sake of complaining, but for whatever it's worth, that original estimate was spot-on (depending on where you attend, even conservative)... It DOES cost that much and then some!

Everything ranging from insurance, rent, food and the other necessities--not to mention the things you can't plan for, like medical issues... Bills, books, supplies, internet, gas... You're a buffoon to think otherwise.

But that aside, why in the bloody fucking hell would you even slap someone's hand for trying to make the case that costs are too high anyway? What kind of dumb-ass does something like that? What would anyone have to lose if someone won that kind of fucking argument!?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bryan1945]

Yep, the libraries have 1 or 2 copies. If everyone didn't buy the books, good luck getting hold of one of those copies. Another scam is that a new edition will be released every 2 years or so, with the difference being a few different problems, maybe some case studies, that kind of stuff. Profs would actually tell us, don't buy the 7th edition, the 3rd edition is fine, I'll tell you the differences if it's important. Except for the profs that wrote the book, then you HAD TO HAVE THE LATEST BOOK! But even 2nd hand books will generally only get you 1/2 price.

Textbooks are just one huge scam. I won't complain about a brand new book, because that first edition pays back all the work that went into that book. After that, new editions are just bonus money, except for every 3rd or 4th iteration when it gets overhauled.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Two options.
1) Go to a cheaper (than average) school. I know my eduction was much less and still a state school.
2) Part time job during the school year and full time job during summer and winder breaks. Your debt doesn't have to equal the expenses if you bring in some income and there is no excuse to NOT bring in at least some income. If you can't make $20,000 over four years working part time jobs and during the summer then you shouldn't be in college.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Dishevel]

So you are saying that many more parents now are failing their children now?
I agree.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

That figure is inflated. It does not account for: Buying used, not buying books that are not "needed", reselling books after, and other factors such as using library or borrowing friends books.

Used book Example:
Book list price: 200
Used price: 100
Resell value 50
Actual price paid 50
Price "accounted for" 200

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

60k is *IF* you live on campus and do not get a job...

You also looked at 'out of state'. If you look for in-state it is much cheaper (about half what you are quoting).

Also room and board (~5k), insurance (~1.5k) PER semester. You are paying ~1000 dollars a month for room and board. That is 12k per year (and thats only about 8-10 months of the year). Then on top of that you are paying about 300 a month for insurance. Most people can have insurance thru their parents for negligible costs.

So yes consider it a math lesson. You can in many places rent a house for 1000 a month and split the cost with someone.

I did about 15k in 1996. My sister who graduated in 2004 was about 25k for the same school and a law degree. This is a state university btw...

They *JAM* you hard if you live on campus. This has always been true. My 15k would have been 30-40k if I had lived on campus.

I also got a job so I could pay off the small loans I was getting as soon as I got out. I was paid off in under a year.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Dhalka226]

I guess it depends on what we're including in the cost. I went to Illinois State in the early 2000s, an in-state school and not a top-end one. All told it cost me in the area of $10,000 a year, which included the tuition and the various fees, and housing. Looking at the webpage for the current rates*, it looks like about $18,500 for tuition + board (I'm honestly shocked, wow). The breakdown is about $10k tuition + $8k housing.

Obviously if you take housing out, that fee would drop substantially -- but that is a limited opportunity for people who happen to go to a school close enough to commute to. Otherwise the choice is living in an apartment nearby and you're just shifting the housing cost into somebody else's pocket; it's still an expense of attending school.

By comparison, looking at the University of Illinois website right now (which is a good school) tuition/fees run $13,658 for residents, which does not include housing. For a room you share with somebody else and a meal plan, tack on another $9,714 a year for a total of $23,372. Per year.

None of these numbers include books or doing anything other than marching from class to class and back to your dorm with an occasional stop to eat (not that I advocate putting anything else into your debt), by the way. So they are all I'd say around $1,000 a year low for books alone. (And incidentally the stat I was given when I started college was that only something like 20% of students would actually complete their degree in four years.)

I'm sure that location affects things somewhat (Illinois is not a cheap state and I'm sure something like South Dakota would be cheaper), but perhaps the disconnect hinges on "debt." I think it's pretty easily demonstrable that the cost of these educations can very easily reach and exceed $60,000 over a four-year period without going to Harvard or Yale or any such. Whether or not you go into that much debt depends on a lot of things, chief among them whether or not you are also working while you attend college and how much, how much various financial aid you manage to accrue, and of course if you spend a lot of time going out and partying or anything that like that eats into your money and prompts you to let more of the other monies come from debt instead of income.

I'm perfectly willing to assume that prices may be a lot cheaper elsewhere, but unless you attend Bumblefuck Egypt School of Whatever as an in-state student living at home, or are trying to compare the costs of a 1970 education to todays (just look at the comparison from early 2000s to now!), I have an extremely hard time believing something like 15-20k for an entire four year degree is within the realm of feasibility. If you're paying nothing but tuition, yeah, maybe.

There is a difference between a freshman entering school and not knowing what to study, and that same person cruising around for the next 4 years without ever thinking "shit, how is my education going to get me a job with which to repay by debt?"

I don't disagree, but at the same time most colleges are just fucking terrible at teaching you skills needed to get and do well in a job; their reward primarily is the piece of paper at the end and possibly some connections you make in the interim, not what you are actually taught. When this is brought up to people we tend to be told that university isn't job training, it's about getting an education, and that people who want that should go attend a vocational school. There is a disconnect there. People should go tens of thousands into debt to "upgrade" to a four-year degree that doesn't teach them things they're going to use in their job, but still need to make sure they choose a degree that is going to get them a job? It's not logically impossible, but it is clear evidence of a problem (that universities are happy to exploit).

* Here's a good one, and a great example of another problem. I used their "cost estimator" and told them I

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson.

Tuition has gone up. In California, home of the free public university, tuition is $3,500 per semester or $7000 per year for a lesser-known, low-demand university. Add $1,000 per year for books and we're seeing a minimum cost of $32,000 for a four-year degree. A better public university will be more expensive with the higher demand. Someone who wants to learn the subject and go to to a research university may be paying twice as much, $60,000+, not counting housing costs.

The university claims its own costs are $15,000 per student per year. If the state were not subsidizing the cost of education, a four-year degree would cost $60,000 assuming that a student could get into all the needed classes and get out in four years.

A student going to a private university can expect to pay even more.

Then there is the cost of housing. This will run students another $9,000-$11,000 per year to rent a dorm; the cheap university is now costing close to $20,000 per year. Renting a house instead of a dorm will run to $20,000-$30,000 per year ($1,600-$2,500 per month), not including utilities, but it can be split between housemates.

Total costs can be kept lower by going to a community college for the first two years and for the standard young adult "what do I want to major in" phase.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

In fact, they did. What exactly is your point?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[robot256]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[geekoid]

Wrong.

Depends on the school.
Some school ass value to your resume based solely on the schools reputation. High end schools add value through the contacts you make.

It's not just the classroom data that makes them valuable.

If you go to Harvard, then you should be involved in every social event you can possible be in. That's how you land a high paying job with an even higher paying future.

If you go to Harvard, don't participate and only go to class, well then, you missed the point.

I used Harvard as an example, but it applies to Mudd, MIT, Yale, Oxford. etc . . .

Re:Tuition math lesson

[geekoid]

Yes, like no one around them could say anything about that, or that they can't change their degree program.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to a private school that was $32 to $38k per year and wouldn't have gone to a private school if I could have. Once I got in to the work force, I found myself both much better prepared and much more capable than my co-workers that went to public schools. By all means, check to ensure the performance of a school justifies its cost, but cheaper is not always better. I was a Sr. Programmer analyst making substantially more money than my similar aged peers at the age of 25 and have the job security that comes from being the "indispensable" member of the department. I get the best work and the most laid back enforcement of policies. Oh, and did I mention that with scholarships and aid, I only actually paid about $40 to $50k for the entire four years of school, which I've already made back in salary differential alone (at age 27).

Re:Tuition math lesson

[geekoid]

If my kids are going to school full time, WTF is wrong with them living at home?
Nothing.

Here is my arrangement for when my kids are done with high school.

1) You can live at home if you go to school full time.
2) You can live at home if you are starting your own business and working it full time.

You want to play games all day? fine, do it in your own place.

So, if my daughter is 22 and need to live at home while she gets her PhD is physics? I really don't see a problem with that.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[geekoid]

They have gone up because, while there are other markets to offset the increased cost of normal books, there isn't any to offset the increased cost of making books for university.

Of course, the whole text book crap needs to end. We really have no need for it anymore.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

Sounds like you have a serious dose of reality ahead of you. Things may well be different for you, but here is the reality for us. Many (most?) of the state schools in NY are located in small towns, where there really is nothing except the college. So a town of maybe 15000 people has a college with maybe 5000 students in it. How many jobs do you think are going to be available in a town like that, even in good economic times? How many employers are going to give those jobs to students?

Also, note that I did not say I am paying their rent, I said THEY are paying their rent. In the absence of sufficient income, that means they have loans.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Red Flayer]

Not if you're in NJ. The cheapest state school in NJ is roughly $15k/yr for in-state students.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[kannibal_klown]

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson. Teach your kids that one at home so they don't have to pay for it again.

I went to an in-state university in NJ, one of the cheaper solutions. NOT a private University or a anything.

Tuition was ~ $12,000 a year
Room & board was hefty too, though I forget the exact numbers.

Personally, I had a tuition scholarship so 4 years of school + 3 years of dorm + food was around $22,000

Without the scholarship, it would have easily been $60,000 total.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[AJodock]

The teachers have to constantly change their textbooks because all of the students get the teachers solutions manuals and pass them around even during class on jump drives. My CSci teachers would get around this by making their own homework instead of just using what the book gave them. They typically wouldn't change editions until the book store could no longer buy the old edition, and even then they would say if you have a old edition it will still work.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Herkum01]

I had about $3K a semester (tuition and books) at Virginia Commonwealth University(VCU) in 2005. I am not sure if that is true now, but that it is a far cry from $15K a year.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

For me (graduated 2009):

1. Go to a cheap in-state public university.
2. Get a scholarship to cover tuition (the requirements were not difficult to meet, and just had to maintain 3.0 GPA).
3. Work 25-30 hours / week at a local computer shop to cover living expenses, books, and school fees.
4. Eat a lot of ramen noodles.
5. Graduate in 4 years with no school debt.

On another note... ALWAYS do summer internships. Did 2 internships at a well known organization which landed me my first salaried position a month after I graduated.

It was a pain in the ass, and I hate ramen noodles now... but I learned how to get shit done, and I don't have a huge debt looming over me now. It's not the easiest path, but it's still possible with the right mix of luck and determination.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Gilmoure]

Perhaps divert some of that bailout money/warmongering money to your education system?

Haven't you heard? Helping out regular folks is socialism. The only way to fund universities now days would be to offer security/loans on their endowment investments so they could play the market with a bit more risk.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[TheRaven64]

Yep, the libraries have 1 or 2 copies. If everyone didn't buy the books, good luck getting hold of one of those copies

We had classes for about 100. Each had about 5 course texts, but they had overlapping content so you rarely needed to read more than one. Actually, between the lecture notes and the material presented in the lectures, you only needed to read a book if you were aiming to get a first or a decent 2.1 - you could get a 2.2 or just scrape a 2.1 without reading any of the books.

Another scam is that a new edition will be released every 2 years or so, with the difference being a few different problems, maybe some case studies, that kind of stuff

Does this actually matter? The only assessed problems for us were ones set by the lecturer, not ones in a specific book. If any specific cases was going to be required for the exam or coursework then they were covered in lectures and handouts. Textbooks were for more general background.

Except for the profs that wrote the book, then you HAD TO HAVE THE LATEST BOOK!

One of my books is used as the course text for a module in a canadian university. I think I make under £50/year from sales to their students, if that. Even if you get all of your students to buy your book, it's not worth it.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

No actually even at major private university (in the top 50 of US News and World Report) a BS plus MS in a STEM field will cost under $50k. I have a son who is finishing an MS in Mechanical Engineering and my total bill won't crack $50k

Re:Tuition math lesson

[TankSpanker04]

I'm sure things are a bit different nowadays, but here's my college cost rundown: Attended a CA community college for 5 semesters @ $300 ea plus about $150 ea in books = $2250 Transferred to Cal Poly SLO for 11 quarters @ $750 ea plus about $250 ea in books = $11,000 Add in various school fees over the years (parking permits, student ID), no rent (lived at home)... was out for about $15k. Got a BS-CSC from a great school and never had a student loan. P.S. I graduated in '02.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Zcar]

Looks like your school is even cheaper: $2790/full time (up to 15 credit hours) semester tuition or just over $22320 for 8 semesters: http://www.saumag.edu/academics/content/FeeSheet.pdf

Maybe you shouldn't have been looking at international costs?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you link to the international students section for tuition? Everyone know international students get screwed on tuition costs. Here's the link for the actual tuition and fees at that school.

http://www.saumag.edu/academics/content/feesheet.pdf

Only adding the tuition it comes out to $5580 for the year. "Undergraduate Fees - (In-state)........... $2,790 (15 hrs.)" (had to removed some of the .'s because of slashdot filter)

I'm not going to bother adding up the fees listed but there is no way they can come out to being as much as the tuition itself. I also didn't add in housing. $5580 for a year would be amazing. to only have to pay for a 4 year non-community college.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Vancorps]

Actually, your point of view is disingenuous at best. If they weren't in school they get a full time job and not have to go into debt to pay rent and bills. So, they most certainly do contribute to the cost of getting an education. If they didn't have a job then they would live at home and again not have to go into debt for rent.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

... 20K for college tuition? What decade are you living in?! I paid well over 20K for mine and my younger sister is sitting around 40K with another year left!

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

"Go to a cheaper (than average) school. I know my eduction was much less . . . and full time job during summer and winder breaks."

I think your post speaks for itself ;)
--os

Re:Tuition math lesson

[tlhIngan]

The teachers have to constantly change their textbooks because all of the students get the teachers solutions manuals and pass them around even during class on jump drives. My CSci teachers would get around this by making their own homework instead of just using what the book gave them

Most courses get around that problem in one of two ways.

1) They make the homework optional. Good students automatically do it anyways because they understand tthe value of doing the work to help study and prepare.

2) The homework is worth a tiny fraction of your mark (5-10%).

Having a copy of the solutions manual is useless in both cases for your mark - the final exam score usually determines pass/fail and is usually rigged that you have to pass the final in order to pass the course.

Now, a student having a copy of the solutions manual is very helpful during studying to figure out where they got stuck and to review that they understood how to do the problem.

Good profs understand this and often the homework they assign has the solution available in the workbook completely worked out.

It's college/university - you're expected to be responsible for yourself and good students do homework even if it's not required.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Toonol]

A lot of stupid teenagers think that being away from home for a few years is worth another $30,000 in debt.

Nearly everybody I know spent their late 20's and early 30's fixing the terrible mistakes they made in their early 20's and teens.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years ago at state university (not even a big one) tuition was $14,000/yr. Might want to check your reality.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Toonol]

Just a side note... buying textbooks from overseas is a very good strategy. A chemistry, physics, math, or CS book might sell for $150 in the US, but have a softcover edition sold in India for $12. They're generally identical, same exercises and page numbers, except the Indian copy has 'not legal for resale in the United States' printed on the cover.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[StormReaver]

I'd like to know in what year you managed to complete four years of college for 15 to 20 thousand dollars.

I got my CIS BS degree from Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) in 1999, and my total loan debt was $18K. While the total cost of my university education was probably close to $40K, there were a few ways I drastically reduced my debt:

1) I lived with my parents, and commuted to school. This is the #1 way I reduced my expenses. No rent, and no food and utility bills.

2) I got a Pell grant every semester. This provided me with the cash I needed for my personal expenses (phone, daily lunch on campus, and car maintenance).

3) Took loans for tuition, student fees, and books ONLY.

Four and a half years to finish my degree, and $18K of debt. It seems like a long time ago that I paid off my loans, but I think I paid on them for seven years on a ten year term, after deferring payments (due to unemployment) for the first year after graduation.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Books? which at four-year public colleges in 2011-12 is $1,168 per year

Seriously? Do US universities get away with this? I didn't have to buy any books for my degree. Anything that was recommended reading was available in the university library, so the only reason to actually buy a copy was if you wanted to be able to refer to it in the future. I did buy a few books, but most of them were from the second-hand shop on campus so cost £5 or under.

It's quite common. My girlfriend spends roughly 1500 USD equivalent per year on books for her law studies in Denmark.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Toonol]

Every dollar of government aid for tuition will result in tuition being raised by one dollar, so as to continue to extract as much money from students as possible.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Bucky24]

Currently at the University I went to, tuition is $4,000 per quarter. That's $12,000 per year. In four years a student could rack up $48,000 in loans and that's just to pay for tuition. Then (if they aren't lucky enough to live near a good university) they will probably pay extra for housing. That goes for another $3,000 a quarter if you live on campus, or another $36,000. If you live off campus, average rent is about $600-$900 for a room (its a college town), and often you can only find rooms for $600 if you split with someone else. At ten months for a school year (September-June, I think I counted that right?), that can be as high as $9,000 a year, still $36,000, and at the low end its still $24,000 a year. And, bear in mind, this is assuming a full course-load. If students want to take only 2 classes then their tuition drops... to $3000 a quarter. And they have to go to school for longer because they don't have enough time in 4 years to finish their degrees. Going to school full time, you CAN work part time, but its difficult (I know because I did it, and was lucky enough to get a job in my field of study). That can pay for rent, maybe, and food/utilities/ect.

School is very difficult to afford for those who's parents are rich enough to disqualify them for grants, but not rich enough to actually be able to push them through college (my parents are this way-I was disqualified for grants because they own a second property, a property that they can't sell because of the market).

The last year I was in school, an entire major was removed, due to budget constraints. It was social sciences, which, from your post above, I can see you think is useless. However, right after, they created a new major: Judaism. You can currently get a Bachelors degree in Judaism from this University. How is that any more useful then social studies (which actually does have SOME uses)?

So tell me, who's fault is it that tuition is so high? Even people who are in "useful" majors like myself had to get loans, and I was one of the lucky ones who could get a job (again, college town, even little jobs in coffee shops get snapped up very quickly). I could go on to contrast the cost against the quality of education I received, but that's not really the point.

While I agree that if you're going to go $60,000 into debt for a history degree, you should stop and rethink what you're doing, but it is very very easy to get that much into debt simply by going to a University, no matter what your major. Maybe it's different where you come from?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson. Teach your kids that one at home so they don't have to pay for it again.

I started college at an in-state school with $10K in the bank, lived in on-campus housing, worked a co-op job for 3 semesters, and still graduated with $12.5K in debt, TWENTY YEARS AGO.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[TheRaven64]

Law is a bit of a special case. The books that you buy during a law degree are usually the books that every lawyer needs to own for regular reference.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[TheRaven64]

My CSci teachers would get around this by making their own homework instead of just using what the book gave them

How is this 'getting around' anything? That's how university courses are supposed to work! They're not like school where everyone is teaching the same material, they're supposed to be tailored to the lecturer. That's why you go to a university - i.e. a place where people at the top of their field are conducting original research - so that you can be taught by experts in the material that you're learning. If they're just going to tell you to read a book and do the problems in it then you may as well just sit the exams as an external candidate, get the degree and save yourself 90% of the cost.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[BitZtream]

Where can you live for 4 years on $20k ... let alone live AND go to school?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Solandri]

Tuition and fees? In 2011-12, public four-year colleges charge, on average, $8,244 in tuition and fees for in-state students. Per year [...]

Average cost of a four-year degree at an in-state school for someone living off-campus?

(8244+1168+1082)*4 = $41,976

Most financially strapped students (or at least the ones who research how to go to school cheaply) spend the first few years attending course at a considerably cheaper community college. Then they get those credits transferred to a regular public university and get their degree there.

And if you're working part-time while going to school, that $42k in expenses only translates into about $20k-$25k of debt. Not $60k of debt as GP claimed.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Solandri]

We're looking at opportunity costs. You need housing and food whether or not you go to school, so those costs should not be included. (Unless the school's housing and/or meal plan costs significantly more, in which case you should including the cost above regular housing and meals. You should also be asking yourself why you're living on campus and eating in the cafeteria.)

If you don't look at it in terms of opportunity costs, someone could add up their housing and food expenses, and claim they have $20k in student debt even though they never went to school.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[scot4875]

Cuts in state funding are responsible for most of the increases in tuition over the last 10 years, not 'outrageous' salaries.

Besides, if you want to look at outrageous salaries, the place to start is the football and/or basketball coaches.

--Jeremy

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Em Adespoton]

If my kids are going to school full time, WTF is wrong with them living at home?

Well, look at it this way. In order to get the courses I needed to get my undergraduate degree, I needed to go to a college that was a 6 hour commute from home. I took as many courses as I could from the local college and via remote learning initiatives, but that only covered a few 100 and 200-level courses.
Not everyone lives near a college that actually provides the training needed.

N

Here is my arrangement for when my kids are done with high school.

1) You can live at home if you go to school full time.
2) You can live at home if you are starting your own business and working it full time.

You want to play games all day? fine, do it in your own place.

So, if my daughter is 22 and need to live at home while she gets her PhD is physics? I really don't see a problem with that.

Neither do I... assuming that it is physically and financially possible for her to live at home while getting a PhD. Unless you live in a densely populated area, this is highly unlikely.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[m50d]

Ok, but that's not apples to apples. An economist would say you could make up (at least some of) the difference by renting out what would otherwise be their rooms.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Em Adespoton]

This is why a lot of students these days get eBooks, and just pirate whatever books they need from others. This doesn't work once you get to seminars where the authors only publish in print to the university bookstore (until some TA gets their hand on a digital copy and distributes it), but I remember with the advent of the commercial Internet, many students were no longer using College Bookstores, but instead buying from online sources (both used and new).

I also remember picking up the previous edition of a few textbooks for really cheap and copying the assignment pages from the library copy. It always seemed underhanded to me that for some courses, you essentially paid $120 for a set of assignment questions (as you could get the rest of the material from the lecturer's notes or other sources).

Re:Tuition math lesson

[scot4875]

It takes a truly exceptional asshole to look at the current historically high levels and, more importantly, lengths of unemployment and turn around and imply that everyone who doesn't have a job and everyone who has a child that doesn't have a job is some sort of failure.

Hats off to you; I knew you wouldn't disappoint.

--Jeremy

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

I think you lost the thread of this conversation. The guy you responded to is not one of the clowns claiming that living at home while attending school is always a viable option, he is responding to the idiot above who claims that a child living at home is a sign of your failure as a parent.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

> That much money wouldn't have paid for basic tuition in several decades

I went to a very good in-state engineering school for $600 a semester. I graduated 18 years ago. My daughter just started Georgia Tech, and that's going to cost me $29,128 at current tuition rates. That's one of the top schools in the world. The $20k estimate isn't that far off for a lesser state school. It sounds like you're a high school kid that knows nothing about college.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Forbman]

Hmm... some of us learned what one needs to do for a job, while getting our piece of paper that says we're educated, by...get this... having a job while we were in college. The job could have been part of financial aid (aka work-study), a silly student job on campus, working at UPS, McDonald's, Burger King, the local pizza joint, whatever, and/or paid or unpaid internships. At least, we learned the "show up on time, more or less prepared to do the work on hand" aspect of it. College isn't supposed to educate you in that, and you shouldn't need to go to college to figure that out, either.

If that's what you went for, well, you got sold a bill of goods. Sorry...

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Em Adespoton]

ah; I did indeed lose the thread; that one didn't show up for me for some reason.

Children living at home is a sign that your children are still dependent on you. That could be good or bad, depending on the reason :)
In many parts of the world, you live with your parents* until they die.

*or you live with your spouse's parents, or you end up (un)lucky, and your sibling gets them while you go out and have to do jobs that significantly curtails your life expectancy, just to get by.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

Well, economists say all sorts of stupid things. We are talking about reality here, not some fantasy land. My guess is that there is a vanishingly small number of people who turn their houses into boarding homes for the weeks of the year when their child is at school.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[s73v3r]

Besides, if you want to look at outrageous salaries, the place to start is the football and/or basketball coaches.

Which are usually paid for by the athletic department, which usually gets it's money from football and men's basketball ticket sales/tv rights.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[s73v3r]

Because everyone lives close enough to schools with every possible major of study, right? I totally didn't have to go to school across the state to get my engineering degree. It was all in my head that the school in my hometown didn't offer anything like that.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[s73v3r]

And as for living, sorry, but if you're having trouble affording to live, do what I did, go to a school close enough to your parents house, and live with your parents

And those who don't live close to a school offering their chosen field of study?

Re:Tuition math lesson

[lyml]

If you want to look at it as an opportunity cost you also have to add whatever opportunity you are missing, e.g. the wage for a full time job.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[s73v3r]

Don't forget the international edition. I bought several books that were the paperback, international edition of the book. Exact same content, and loads cheaper.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[VeriTea]

There have not been any significant cuts in funding at any level. The issue is that the funding has not risen as fast as college expenditures so that a much smaller percentage of the cost is born by students in the form of tuition. See this link for more details (http://www.highereducation.org/reports/losing_ground/ar2.shtml). It is very common to hear people decrying 'cuts' when there is no such thing going on. The issue is purely one of uncontrolled rising costs full stop.

You are perfectly correct that the extra money is not spent on faculty salary costs. In fact, overall costs for faculty have been slightly declining due to the widespread use of adjunct professors who make very little and have no benefits. So if prices are rising much faster then inflation and the money isn't going to the average professor where is it going?

My guess is campus upgrades (somewhat offset by donations), administration salaries, sports - all of which have been growing like gangbusters at nearly any university you observe. At big universities the sports programs may actually be money-makers, but smaller universities loose money on them. It is also worth noting the rise of 'superstar' professors that make salaries well into the six figures (200k to 400k) and are especially prevalent in law schools.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[s73v3r]

Our libraries would typically have the books, but only a couple copies at most. Meaning that if everyone in the class tried that, not everyone would get time with the book.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[bws111]

Yeah $29,128 TUITION. That is not completing 4 years of college for $20K. According to their own web site, the first year ALONE is going to cost you $21,098.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[scot4875]

Well, that's bullshit to begin with, but what if we just went with a system of completely publicly funded universities? It would remove the incentive to soak students for all their parents are worth.

--Jeremy

Re:Tuition math lesson

[sjames]

As others have pointed out, times have changed and it just isn't practical or even possible in a lot of cases for kids to go live on their own right away.

You may not be aware of this, but kids mobving out between 18 and 21 is fairly new anyway. It used to be expected that they would live at home until they got married at least. That wasn't all that long ago.

I have no idea who got the bright idea to wrap kids in cotton for the first 18-22 years and then throw them to the wolves.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[sabs]

I call bullshit on your $4 per credit hour.
A wyoming community college, just had a $4 per credit hour RAISE in their tuition.
NKU is charging a $4 per credit hour activity fee.

There is no way you paid $4 per credit hour in the last 5 years. Probably in the last 15.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you're correct that Georgia Tech itself doesn't know how expensive its own tuition is. The last check I wrote to them was for less than $3,800 with fees. I guess you're right and they have no idea how much their own college should cost and billed me the wrong amount.

I gave you an example of a world-class institution costing less than half of your wild-ass claim.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[garyebickford]

Not to mention, according to a study I read about a few years ago, the average systems administrator make more than the average lawyer. And just this week I read some data about recruiting a web developer here in Mass - there is an average of 0.21 applicants per job. It's not always that way, but from what I'm hearing it's getting pretty hard to find folks who can write code, at least in the range of entry level to two years' experience.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Just Some Guy]

Hey! I got my CSC degree there in 2000. I take the same experience: I lived with my parents and borrowed around $1,500 each semester for tuition and used books. It wasn't glamorous but I loved the school and it's been a good investment.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

apparently this is extremely rare but the university i went to (a state university) had a textbook library with enough textbooks for every student in every class. you checked them out at the beginning of the semester and then returned them at the end. i don't really understand why more universities don't do this. it really saves a LOT of money for their students, even if you need to increase tuition a little to cover the overhead costs to run the textbook library.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[rdnetto]

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson. Teach your kids that one at home so they don't have to pay for it again.

That's not just a math lesson, it's a demonstration of why your system needs an overhaul. I live in Australia, and all undergraduate degrees are subsidized by the government if you're a citizen or permanent resident. The most expensive degrees (e.g. law, med) are $12K / year, while others are as low as $8K. (I think engineering is about $10K, though I could be wrong). The student loans are also provided by the government, have no interest charged on them (though they are indexed to compensate for inflation), and repayments aren't required until your income crosses a threshold.

I have a very good friend who has dual citizenship for Australia and the US. She is extremely intelligent, has a GPA of 4.0 and she's doing her double degree in biomedical science and ECSE engineering here because it's far more economical. The plural of anecdote is not data, but that's a pretty obvious example of how you're missing out on STEM graduates.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[ryanov]

Rutgers in-state tuition was under $5000 a year when I went to school 10 years ago, if I'm not mistaken. That doesn't count books or housing, but that's not what you said either.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[ryanov]

Yup: "Tuition for most full-time undergraduates who are New Jersey residents will increase $100 a semester, bringing the annual tuition to $4,762. Tuition for most nonresident full-time undergraduates will increase $203 a semester, bringing the annual tuition to $9,692." ...written in 1999. It went up while I was there, of course, but that's what it was when I started.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[ryanov]

Mine was $10k less than that and it's a big name school.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[godefroi]

I'd be shocked if some giant percentage of people couldn't find their preferred course of study in a close-to-home university. Universities tend to be in large population centers, which is convenient for most people, by definition.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess..UCSC? I went there when they did those things. Doesn't make any sense to me, whatsoever.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[s73v3r]

Not every college/university offers every course of study, however. The school in my hometown offered no engineering courses. Thus, I had to move across the state.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Xeleema]

I have no idea who got the bright idea to wrap kids in cotton for the first 18-22 years and then throw them to the wolves.

Although I'd *love* to take credit for that one....remember the WWII generation? They went to war as boys, came back as men, and stood on their own two feet. Everyone's been expected to follow the example they set when they returned to the homefront.

Then the hippies came....

Re:Tuition math lesson

[HereIAmJH]

Not to mention, according to a study I read about a few years ago, the average systems administrator make more than the average lawyer

My auto mechanic charges $60 per hour; he has the highest quality/lowest price in the area. And he doesn't have to do shift work or be on call.

Re:Tuition math lesson

[Bucky24]

Let me guess..UCSC?

Yep :)

Re:Tuition math lesson

[SydShamino]

So your son and daughter really only have two years (each) that they have to attend the school two hours away. At your quoted rates that's $22k and $32k (total) for their educations.

Are your son and daughter living alone at college? An apartment with four roommates, and a college student's food budget shouldn't cost $1375 a month ($11k for "pay rent, buy food, pay utilities, etc." divided into eight months of college a year, with the other three months spent at home working a summer/Christmas job).

I don't know what part of the country you live in, but during my last two years of college my wife and I lived together in a one-room apartment for $420 a month, all utilities included. We had a $300 food budget per month on top of that. We paid for the apartment through the summer (while we were home) so we wouldn't lose it. That's about 2/3rds of what you claim it costs your son or daughter, and that was for TWO of us! At a college that was 1000 miles from home.

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[account_deleted]

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This is only going to end up with one winner

[Anonymous Coward]

The solicitors. I'm sure they are rubbing their hands together for this one and can't wait for a long drawn out battle. I guess this points out the need to employe an intermediate - technical professional that has a proven track record for IT project management?

I know the article is ligth in facts but it does suggest that the university has a record of detailed information on why they feel they were mis sold the software. So In this case it does seem like Oracle mislead the university and this should result in some form of compensation, or a full refund?

What's a good ERP Alternative

[northerner]

Who is using moderate priced ERP software that they like?

What is a good choice of ERP software for a small company that will grow into a medium sized company ($5million to $20million)?

I would like to avoid the experience Montclair State University had, and work with a good software package that doesn't need a lot of expensive consulting to customize it for my company.

Re:What's a good ERP Alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

What does ERP have to do with a University?
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is usually associated with manufacturing. The goal being to identify resources and raw materials available when it’s needed to hit delivery dates. Plus accurately track each step of manufacturing to know where all the sub part are and costs associated with each step.
If their looking for financials, look at MS Dynamics,, not and ERP package. Sounds like they were bent over the fence by a good sales person.
.

Re:What's a good ERP Alternative

[bazorg]

People buying this kind of software and the services that go with it tend to become advocates of their choice. If you look for the Gartner Magic Quadrant analysis for small to medium enterprise ERPs you'll get the names of the most popular choices. You can investigate stuff starting from there and from the user communities that each product has. Gartner tends to work a lot for Microsoft in this kind of research so they will say that Dynamics AX is awesome. YMMV.

Re:What's a good ERP Alternative

[spacepimp]

It wasn't exactly stated in the article, but I believe they are using it for admissions, class registration and most likely to unify organisational requirements associated with similar aspects of this. Many universities and other Colleges use ERP for the exact same purposes. In this case the student is a resource, and the university is the enterprise, and Oracle is shifty integrator. That last bit about Oracle is pure speculation, but they certainly haven't done much to earn themselves a reputation of trustworthiness.

Re:What's a good ERP Alternative

[keysdisease]

Review the available systems, find out how the erp system you like best works, what are the key data schema and business process flows, and can you adopt them? That is the only way to implement any system, bog standard. This will induce massive change in your organization. But you will adapt and survive, or not. Otherwise you will have to customize the system extensively in a process fraught with peril and that will cost like a mother and could fail too.

Isn't that covered by the EULA?

[Anonymous Coward]

THE COMPANY shall not be held liable for any lies, extortion, waste of time, resources and personnel, injury, plague or death that may result from use of THE SOFTWARE.

Marketing. It's always marketing.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

I've seen this problem so many bloody times (and I've had to clean it up a handful of times), it's because marketing goes out and promises big when they don't really have a clue about what their product even is.
Fire the sales guy(s) that sold them the product, and have people who actually understand which end is up fix the problem.

Re:Marketing. It's always marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

the sales guy probably took his big fat commission and ran a long time ago

You are part of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to be treated like an adult, act like an adult.

If some big company advises you to go into $60K of debt for their marvelous services, and you didn't even check that they can meet the goals that you've laid out for yourself....

Stop whining and take some accountability. Go to a cheaper school. If you're 12 years old surely you can understand that.

Re:You are part of the problem

[CaptainPinko]

Stop whining and take some accountability. Go to a cheaper school. If you're 12 years old surely you can understand that.

Really?!!? Because when I was 12 years old every teacher I had told me that university was magical faerie dust that sprinkled on your education guaranteed middle-class jobs and income (no mention of which discipline you study mattering). The same people we were always supposed to listen to and obey. The same ones that taught us to read and do math. So is it our fault really if after over a decade in their system listening to that mantra we fell for it? Frankly, I think society has to own up to its part in the brainwashing and hype that went on there and the resulting debt and useless degrees. PS- does not apply to me, I got a STEM degree paid for by my parents and now have a soulless cubicle job making mad bank and a boring joyless life.

Re:You are part of the problem

[mcneely.mike]

and a boring joyless life

Yes, yes... I used to use MS/Windows too!... Now i use Linux!

God damn... my wife is right! I can work linux into any conversation!
Damn!

Re:You are part of the problem

[Dishevel]

Well. If you do not want to blame your self for making bad decisions. Then you should maybe according to your scenario you should blame your teachers.
Of course the most important thing I ever learned I did not learn from a teacher.

I learned that when you look anywhere other than to your self to find the problems in your life you remove all power of being able to change it your self.
Blaming others may make you feel good for a moment but never leads to a solution.
Finding your part (How ever small) in bad situation allows you to improve and avoid it next time.

Re:You are part of the problem

[geekoid]

".. a boring joyless life."

That's all you, and nothing to do with your career. It a reflection of YOUR personality.

Re:You are part of the problem

[JustSomeProgrammer]

I don't think this is flamebait. Every person I knew in college with an art history degree realized they were going to have a hard time finding a job and a few switched majors due to that. I know lots of people who picked education paths because of the prospect of a job out the other end. High school is where you're supposed to grow up and become an adult. Not college. You're supposed to be an adult when you go to college.

Re:You are part of the problem

[mcneely.mike]

Yep! Whatever... How long did it take you to come up with that?

You have a boring joyless life?

Re:You are part of the problem

[CyberSaint]

I learned that when you look anywhere other than to your self to find the problems in your life you remove all power of being able to change it your self.

You say that like there's a damn thing those of our generation who got caught in the college-debt-trap we were systematically led into can do about it now, other than do their best to find work and pay off the debt. You can't sell your degree to clear your debt or discharge it through bankruptcy. I managed to get out before I hit the point of no return, but there are plenty of our generation now who are just plain SOL and will be paying for the bill of goods their teachers, parents and other roll models sold them until their dying day.

Re:You are part of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Drop a little of that mad bank my way and I'll give you some decent ideas for a route out of your boring joyless life. It doesn't have to be that way. Step 1 is leave the US, as you probably guessed.

Re:You are part of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned that when you look anywhere other than to your self to find the problems in your life you remove all power of being able to change it your self.

Blaming others may make you feel good for a moment but never leads to a solution.

Just because you believe it's someone else's fault doesn't make you unable to fix it. I'm sure many of us have jobs where we fix problems that weren't our fault.

And sometimes figuring out whose fault it is does lead to a solution...

Re:You are part of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

And when you went to college you still believed them? I guess you're excited about Santa coming for a visit in a few days, too. ;-)

Re:You are part of the problem

[Bucky24]

I personally don't believe that at 18 years old most people are qualified to act as adults. College is a pretty good way of teaching them that in a softer fashion then the real world.

Miss a test? Well you might fail the class, which is a real world consequence, but you have a chance to retake it later on. Miss something that serious in a job? You're fired. College, I think, is supposed to teach people how to be responsible adults. They shouldn't have to be totally responsible and understanding of the world when they come in.

Re:You are part of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the most important thing I ever learned I did not learn from a teacher.

It was that hooker in Tijuana.

Re:You are part of the problem

[BitZtream]

your debt or discharge it through bankruptcy.

Not directly, but you most certainly can get rid of it the same way. You pay it off with some other type of loan. Credit cards are a great example. Pay the student loans down with credit cards, discharge the credit cards.

You're still not meeting your obligations (not that the school did either) and you'll still have 'bad credit' for 7 years, just like everyone else will now thats to the economy, and after 7 years, you'll have a much better time dealing with your finances.

Re:You are part of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to make mad bank at a soulless job like you; then I took an arrow in the knee.

Re:You are part of the problem

[Asmodae]

Indeed, and more importantly, preventing it from happening again.

Re:You are part of the problem

[JonySuede]

I learned that when you look anywhere other than to your self to find the problems in your life you remove all power of being able to change it your self.

It's funny that a great teacher once told me that when I was to immature to understand it.

Re:You are part of the problem

[CaptainPinko]

And when you went to college you still believed them?

Yup. My parents were academics and got in when there was less competition. They presume everybody who is smart would have it so easy. They still do as they badger me to do a PhD and I try to explain that a MSCD or a SCJD or ScrumMaster certification would boost my career more (already have a MSc in CS in a field where only Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! work which are no near any of my family).

Re:You are part of the problem

[lgw]

If the one thing you learn from university is that your school teachers were mostly full of shit, that's probably worth $60k over the course of your lifetime.

Heck, it's hard to teach critical thinking, but I can sort of see the value in lying to you constantly and charging you out the ass until it finally dawns on you not to believe people because of their titles!

Re:You are part of the problem

[DarthVain]

To be fair in their experience it did! :)

They've been doing this for years...

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at an Oracle consultancy in the late 90's and they were notorious at the time for doing this. The ERP solution is so convoluted, it was painful to look at the code back then. I am convinced they know internally that this system is unwieldy and market it like plug-and-play. They would *have* to.

When I would see negative press over the years about how bad Microsoft is, I would always think "Where is the negative press about Oracle?"

They were also known for the practice of "Eating Their Young". In this case a small private consultancy goes into a client, scores a job. Then for whatever reason, they need more resources so they go to Oracle for extra consultants. Well, Oracle would try like hell to squeeze out the people that got them the contract, making all sorts of promises, and then play that game where they simply cycle people in and out of the client to increase the billable hours. So incredibly short sighted, because obviously that small consultancy would do *anything* not to bring them in again. They tried it with my company back then and somehow we were able to kick them out.

I can't understand how they've managed to stay so successful. You'd think their reputation would bite them in the ass - more than this Montclair lawsuit.

Re:They've been doing this for years...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't understand how they've managed to stay so successful.

Installed-base inertia. How much do you think it would cost to switch your Oracle/Peoplesoft/ERP implementation over to DB2+ERP or MSSQL+ERP? Not to mention retraining for everyone using the system.

I know I don't recommend Oracle to anyone, but I suspect it'll be a few years before Larry has to sell his yachts.

solution = Milestone billing

[Bardwick]

I love milestone billing.. The project is $10. I'll give you $2 when you accomplish this, $2 when you finish that... Don't care if it takes 20 minutes or 5 years...

Re:solution = Milestone billing

[CaptainPinko]

Isn't the first $2 the easiest and the last $2 the hardest? Won't that just lead to lots of tech demos and no products?

Re:solution = Milestone billing

[viperidaenz]

It would make more sense to say "$1 for A, $1 for B, $1 for C and $7 when A B and C work together correctly"

More data?

[cowboy76Spain]

I would like to know a little more about how the project developed before forming an opinion.

My experience with public organizations is that higher-ups in the administration are all for it ready to take merit, until they realize how much work it does take. They organize a functional group including only the bosses, who happen to(*):

• Don't have too much time for meetings/extra work.
• Don't really know how things really work at lower levels.
• Think that their asses are covered.
• Want everything at everytime completely organized, even if it means losing flexibility and increasing workload without ROI.

Most probably, whatever system based in the specifications that such guys give won't survive the first time it is tested "on the field". These same guys will later claim that the failure was of the contractor, and will show their anger in an attempt to hide their responsability.

In most of the projects I have been, it happens that the bosses discover how the organization really works through it, and what it really needs. The earlier they discover it, the better the project results.

The issue about being told that another project at another university is moot, that is not part of the contract (unless the other university wanted the same functionality and had been given other estimates, that could show a double standard).

My take? So far we only have a one sided story, I would like to know more about the project management to assign blame. Anyway, the fact that the University is going bold and suing for "Extortion" (instead of the standard "Breach of contract") makes me think that they are, at the very minimum, not totally innocent.

(*)Of course, I do not mean that every boss is like that but I see that a little too much...

Re:More data?

[sproketboy]

Of course this is a one sided story. This is slashdot.

Darth Ellison

[pak9rabid]

Dr. Cole (President of Montclair State University): That was never a condition of our agreement, nor was devoting more personnel to this project!
Larry Ellison: Perhaps you think you're being treated unfairly?
Dr. Cole: [pauses] No.
Larry Ellison Good. It would be unfortunate if this project happened to have any further costly delays.
Dr. Cole: [under her breath] This deal is getting worse all the time.

Virtualise this

[Any0n]

You just built a small compute cluster using popular hypervisor, with three hosts, each with 2x8-core physical CPUs.

You plan to run a few Oracle VMs on this cluster.

You are advised by Oracle to license all of the physical cores in your compute cluster, because those VMs can (in theory) move around and run on any of the physical CPUs in the cluster.

You tell Oracle to go and f*ck themselves and opt for a DBMS with a less retarded licensing model.

-- ab1

You must be new here

[sl4shd0rk]

Welcome new Oracle customer! As you explore your personalized Oracle portal, you will find new and exciting functionality awaits so don't miss out!

1) New functionality $4500/core (dual socket 2-core license)
2) Exciting functionality $3500/core (single socket 4-core license)
3) New + Exciting functinality $5200/core (Itanium dual-socket)
4) New + Exciting functionality $5000/core (Opteron dual socket)

The above offers apply only to new Oracle customers and may not be combined with any other coupons/specials currently active. By making a selection from the available licensing packages, you hereby forfeit any legal rights to hold Oracle Ltd. or it's partners liable or responsible for any consequence resulting from sales offers whether verbal or written. You also hereby acknowledge you will decline from bringing charges against Oracle Ltd. or it's partners in any form of class action, personal or civil lawsuit.

Bo Hica
VP/CLO/BFG/BMF Sales/Marketing
Oracle Ltd.

Too bad the university was too stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to not demand and include a Liquidated Damages section and a security bond in the contract they negotiated with Oracle.

The government organization I work for requires it in every contract we negotiate with outside contractors, IT or otherwise. Most IT vendors balk at first, but eventually cave in and agree to the terms. The threat of having to fork out Liquidated Damages or forfeit their security bond helps to a great degree keeping a fire lit under the contractor's asses to make sure they meet deadlines with the deliverables. And yes, we've done that with Oracle resellers/integrators too. Twice in fact, on big projects each one over a million dollars total project cost.

This is atypical?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for an enterprise software company who had a salesperson promise a major national retailer that we supported their chosen database platform, which of course, we didn't. National retailer didn't find out until the implementation was complete, and were mightily pissed. We did the right thing though and added support for the DB. It only required pulling a significant number of developers off our next release and inconvenienced the client for the 3 or 4 months they had to wait.

So, this is not atypical.

Re:This is atypical?

[sl3xd]

You forgot the part where the salesdroid takes his commission check, turns around, and makes the same bogus promise for a new customer, because the droid had already sold the feature before... caches his commission check, and repeats again. The salesdroid has no accountability, and ends up costing the company 3-4 times more than what the deal was supposedly worth.

You know what Oracle stands for, right ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what Oracle stands for right ? One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda makes me miss SCO

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[account_deleted]

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Good

[geekoid]

Nail those lying bastards to the wall.

They used Oracle Consulting?

[billybob_jcv]

Anyone that uses OC as their primary implementation partner is an idiot. None of the dozen or more Oracle sales reps I know recommend OC to their customers because they know the deal will go bad.

Pragmatic vs Ideal Implementations

[matthaak]

Working in Professional Services for another major enterprise application, I could really see this being the fault of either party. I think many in Professional Services (myself included) take a pragmatic approach to implementation. The focus is on getting something going that meets 90 or 95% of the requirements with a healthy dose of skepticism that anything beyond that is worth the cost. At some point, the customer has to pull the trigger, adopt and adapt. In the course of doing so, they will discover shortcomings and advantages that weren't envisioned initially, and the effort and cost of pursuing perfection initially can be saved for follow-up effort once all that real-world feedback is collected. I have found some University customers tend much more towards wanting the "ideal" solution on Day 1 and as a Professional Services provider, going that last 5 or 10% of the way to perfection can be an extremely frustrating, money-losing endeavor. At the same time, none of the above can be encoded in a contract that would ever get signed, so all you can do as a Professional Services provider is choose your customers wisely and know when to require time & materials contracts.

Re:Pragmatic vs Ideal Implementations

[Anonymous Coward]

> At some point, the customer has to pull the trigger, adopt and adapt.

It sounds like you've been there and done that.

I've been involved with five ERP projects so far, and the problem of every single manager wanting to do things their way and to make-up their own procedures as they go along is the reason all of them failed. One project completely changed every bit of their accounting process twice over from top to bottom because they hired two new CFOs. Shipping changed multiple times because managers were replaced several times. Each manager wanted to do shipping the way they did it at their previous company. In every company we had people that had worked their job for decades that wanted to keep doing things their inefficient way rather than change. That is why ERP systems require an insane amount of customization. Unfortunately many of the ad-hoc internal processes companies have are illogical and unable to be implemented in software.

For an ERP system to work you need a strong President/CEO that will be there long enough to see the standardization of processes through. Unfortunately, not many of them stay at one company long enough or have enough power to for a company to improve their procedures to match the standard that one of the ERP vendors has created. It sounds like at MSU they have a weak president that couldn't make their employees fix their processes.

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Contractual incentives?

[swb]

I thought the way this was managed these days was with contractual incentives.

The seller wants $100 dollars for a project. The buyer wants to pay $50 dollars for the project.

Normally, the buyer and the seller would negotiate some price, say $75, with generally no timing.

Now what seems common is that the buyer negotiates to pay $75 with completion guaranteed on some date. The buyer also negotiates incentives and penalties -- if the project is done earlier, there's some extra money for early completion, and for every N units of time the project is late, the buy deducts money.

The early completion bonus is capped to mitigate sloppy work as well as to keep the agreed completion date realistic, and the project actually has to function right, with the bonus sacrificed for problems that crop up.

They do this with highway projects -- I lived blocks from a billion dollar freeway project and it was amazing to see it done about a month early -- the vendor got a bonus.

If they told you to jump off a bridge...

[Lashat]

would you?

Re:If they told you to jump off a bridge...

[CaptainPinko]

At the age of 12? Most definitely, I already felt like I was "missing out of everything" and "the odd one out" just because my parents were immigrants and for many years afterwards. I think it was only after bouncing back from the depression that claimed my early 20 that I felt able to do things differently.

Re:If they told you to jump off a bridge...

[Lashat]

Then it's obviously everyone else's fault and you are completely absolved from any blame for your own decisions whatsoever.

Not necessarily a negative

[zooblethorpe]

".. a boring joyless life."

That's all you, and nothing to do with your career. It a reflection of YOUR personality.

Well, it's fair to point out that he didn't say that was a bad thing -- for all we know, he's an accountant, and a boring joyless life is actually just what he wants.

Cheers,

Too many escape clauses

[Shivetya]

your general catch all clause falls to the standard tactic of claiming the buyer changed the requirements so that the original time line is void. Any absence on the buyer's part that holds back any part of the project; and believe me they will keep every note about delays from your side they can; give them an out.

The big problem with most of these projects is the people in charge of implementing their chosen solution rarely will stop a project and willingly commit a companies money until its done. Egos don't like being bruised.

Complaint and response

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the first complaint from the University and Oracle's response:

You'd have to pull anything newer from PACER, nobody seems to have put it online yet.

Original Complaint:

http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/news/2240036374/Montclair-State-University-vs-Oracle-lawsuit

Oracle Response:

http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/news/2240036378/Oracle-response-to-Montclair-State-University-lawsuit

There is an amended complaint that someone should pull from PACER. This case is a "textbook example of how to sue a vendor" for fucking up.

Profit == Overpricing, eh?

[zooblethorpe]

They don't price and value their product on their own merits, but on the merits of who, how and where it is to be used. If McDonald's operated this way, the results would be interesting wouldn't they.

No, you are confused. Noboby in their right mind prices their products based on their own merits. You price your products based on what the market will bear and pocket the profit. Economics 101.

A little history for you first.

The Quakers in the 1800s developed a reputation for fair dealing. They did a couple things in their business transactions that were unusual, and widely regarded as equitable -- 1) they set a price and that was the price, no haggling or shystering; and 2) that price was based on a reasoned estimate of the value of the time and materials that went into the product or service being sold. They made a living in their fair dealings, and did well by themselves. This is a large part of the reason that "Quaker" became a favorable brand image in the US, such as Quaker State Oil, or Quaker Oats, complete with a smiling picture of a man in Quaker clothing as part of the label.

There's a difference between making a living, and making a killing. US-style business anymore seems much more about killing, and as we're discovering with the state of the economy these days, it's awful hard to make a living this way. Many others have described how mass greed ultimately destroys value, and consistent overpricing to ensure profit -- not just to cover costs and a bit extra for room to grow, but instead deliberate excess as part of the dream of getting something for nothing -- is sucking the value out of everything around us. It's wholly unsustainable.

But it seems that's taught in the higher-level classes, not at the 101 level. I'm guessing many of the movers and shakers in the US economy never got that far in their studies.

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"Sell them the sizzle..."

[bodland]

Then sell them the bacon later...

Its not just Oracle

[viperidaenz]

IBM does the same thing. The project I'm on now exists because IBM failed to deliver so the client is now doing it themselves. Why they chose an IBM framework that costs millions in licensing I don't know...

Not unless you went to Drexel 30k just for classes

[Anonymous Coward]

Budget Detail Budget Component Amount
Tuition $30,900.00
Fees $2,130.00
Room and Board $13,125.00
Books $1,950.00
Travel $850.00
Miscellaneous $3,000.00
Total: $51,955.00

thank god i got a full time job as a co-op and was able to pay for it on my own...

This is S.O.P.

[roc97007]

Anyone who has worked either side in this type of project can tell you this (what Oracle is accused of) is standard operating procedure, not just for Oracle. The steps are usually:

a) Agree to virtually anything. The intent is to get the contract. A practical schedule is actually a disadvantage, as we will see later. Don't worry too much about non-delivery clauses, they will never apply.

b) Continue development until time runs out. Developers will be oddly calm as deadline approaches for reasons that will become clear later.

(The objective here is to show competency, but with no serious intention of fulfilling the contract.)

c) Miss the deadline.

d) Allow hysteria to accumulate. Blame missed deadline on unrealistic scope and/or feature creep. Encourage panic.

e) Present new proposal at higher price and tough out the fireworks. ("Go ahead and sue. We have more lawyers than you have employees.")

f) $$ Profit!

This works (usually) because the end product is often a critical replacement or enhancement to an integral part of the customer's business (eg, Billing, Customer Service) and the customer will look for the shortest path to being able to do business.

It's common for the abused customer to threaten lawsuits, exceedingly rare for them to follow through. Kudos to Montclair for having the guts to go against a major corporation. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Re:This is S.O.P.

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be that companies did this sort of work themselves. But now, most companies have abandoned the idea of in-house IT development so they are at the mercy of vendors and consultants. Even in-house IT staff finds an incentive to advocate for Oracle or SAP as it adds those names to their resumes and gives them the opportunity to work on lucrative implementation projects as consultants.

Normally the folks who make these decisions where the project blows up ( the common fate of most ERP projects), have an incentive to declare the projects successful. It's hard to explain to shareholders how you spent $100million on a project that turned the company inside out and yet added little value ?

Software companies are the worst sort of vampires. They use the size, customer base and years in business as selling points, when in fact it is those very factors that renders the underlying software brittle, bloated and riddled with bugs. Nobody at those companies any longer has a real understanding of what the software does or how it works.

this is distressingly familiar

[perotbot]

A similar large vendor tried this near me. they said for X we will deliver A, B &C. simple We pony up X..... quick implementation ensues 1. The techie they sent us has never worked with an environment like ours 2 The internal geeks stated "this crap stinks, doesn't work and will break things" 3.The salesman precedes to distract management with concert and sports tickets 4. Project is getting near deadline, A, B & C not working 5. We report that A B & C aren't working and that "this crap stinks, doesn't work and will break things" 6. The salesman precedes to distract management with concert and sports tickets 7. Project finally stalls 8.A B & C aren't working and "this crap stinks, doesn't work and will break things" 9 Salesman says "throw 5x at problem and that will fix it 10. Management balks because A B & C aren't working and "this crap stinks, doesn't work and will break things" 11. Suddenly Salesman isn't taking calls This is the pattern of business, it doesn't matter if something actually works, it matters that it makes a sale.

Re:this is distressingly familiar

[cowboy76Spain]

The mistake is allowing 4 to happen before 5.

After that, if the management prefers to go to concerts than to work for the company, you can't do a thing. But you should have warned as soon as the risk indications had arisen.

Just popped by to say....

[Peter Harris]

Fuck Oracle.

Two words...

[Beeftopia]

Bait. And Switch.

It's well known in the retail world, where you can get successfully sued for it. Remains to be seen if a judge or jury can discern it in this case.

Or as Larry Calls it...

[dainbug]

Thursday

Software contracts are almost always wrong

[Pirulo]

I develop very complex, web based systems for a living, moved to using (mainly) Ruby and RoR a long time ago.
To see multimillion projects like this only tells how bad and uninformed the management layer is. (even if they completed it on budget and on time).

A university should have:

1./ Team up their computer science grads
2./ Write the stuff themselves
3./ Open Source it,

The indirect profit comes from:

a) saving the obnoxious, extortive amount of money to pay to a vulture vendor
b) giving an interesting job they can brag about to their own students (unless they don't believe in the people they form)
c) the popularity of having written a soft any other uni can use for their needs

But of course, what can you expect? It is pointy hair people that takes the decisions.

Link to full filing

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

I'm the author of the original article, wanted to share a link to the full court filing by Montclair, see below. Been enjoying all the comments, very interesting discussions and thanks for reading!

Chris Kanaracus
IDG News Service

http://www.scribd.com/doc/75810731/OracleMontclairAmended

Threats

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is a surprise to anyone? *OTHER* similar companies do the same thing and just some times a lid is lifted so people can see this sort of black mail goes on quite often. Usually the account team (you name the company) is more subtle and make the threats where they know it won't be reported.
One company spoke in front of me saying that certain individuals (names spoken) are NOT to be part of the team effort as they (the company) doesn't like them for whatever reason.
Once they (the company) has their feet in the door its impossible to get them out without major payoffs. I have only heard it being done once (kicking the company out the door) and getting away with it. Yes threats and lawsuits are done and everyone ends up looking like a long dead horse.