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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
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.
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.