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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."
It's not lying, it's marketing and/or sales.
Seriously... what did they expect?
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.
Pray you do not anger Him further.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
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.
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.
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
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.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
"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."
Yea, that's not how public-sector procurement works.
TODO: Something witty here...
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."
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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(*):
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...
Why can't
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.
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
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.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
So you agree that the mostly technical Slashdot community consistently points out the ineptitudes of non-technical managers?
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
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!
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
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.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
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.
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.
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.
".. 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,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
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.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
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.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.