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UK Government Signs New Deal With Oracle

Posted by samzenpus on from the sign-on-the-dotted-line dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has signed a deal with Oracle that should allow it to cut down on spending and licensing costs with the software provider. The three-year partnership will see the two collaborate to deliver services to public sector bodies including the National Health Service. A few weeks ago the government announced it would be cutting back on its use of Oracle software, but the new deal instead extends the existing agreement. CCS CEO Sally Collier explained: "The enhanced MoU will deliver savings across government and allow easier and more effective procurement of Oracle products and services. It lays the foundation of a more collaborative relationship between government and Oracle."

54 comments

  1. oracle db by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 2

    their product is godsend if you're a contractor/admin. but as a user/customer, there are nicer graves to lie in.

    1. Re:oracle db by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares, it's other people's money, right?

    2. Re:oracle db by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just Oracle's money.

    3. Re:oracle db by targetweb · · Score: 1

      yap

      --
      TargetWEB -> Optimizare, seo, servicii seo
    4. Re:oracle db by ChumpusRex2003 · · Score: 1

      Oracle has been the favoured database backend for a lot of healthcare software that I've ended up procuring.

      What has been quite interesting is that two of our software vendors have just delivered updates as part of the contract. In both cases, part of the upgrade was to "upgrade" the database from Oracle Enterprise to Postgres. From the cost of licensing, there's no surprise why the application vendors are doing this. Not being adequately experienced with SQL, I don't really know enough about postgres to know if technically this is a good idea.

    5. Re:oracle db by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 1

      i only administer the underlying servers, not the DB itself, but in the past i witnessed a lot of moves from Oracle to EnterpriseDB (commercial postgresql). I don't think the opensource version of postgresql (at the time) was a suitable replacement for some of the more advanced features oracle offered.

  2. Market in action by Karmashock · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Oracle is largely indifferent to consumer complaints because most of their consumers are big organizations that are often captive to their products.

    But... if you're willing to eat the pain to get their attention, apparently you can get through to them that they're behaving like jackasses.

    --
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    1. Re:Market in action by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oracle is largely indifferent to consumer complaints because most of their consumers are big organizations that are often captive to their products.

      But... if you're willing to eat the pain to get their attention, apparently you can get through to them that they're behaving like jackasses.

      They have ways of leveraging the lock in. Once company I know of bought various products, one of which they found unsuitable and didn't use. When license renewal came up they asked nit to renew that product. Oracle's answer was "sure, but that was part of the negotiated package. If you don't take that you only get the standard discount, so it will cost you X $1,000s extra not to take that package". So the company carried on paying license and support for something it didn't use until the next round of purchasing when they could renegotiate.

    2. Re:Market in action by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure why people think that that is abnormal - a package is negotiated, if you want to change the package then the discount changes as its the package is negotiated as a single purchase, which you now want to change.

      Its standard all over, its not specific to Oracle.

    3. Re:Market in action by Karmashock · · Score: 2

      Oh, that isn't the problem with Oracle. The problem is that their tech is increasingly less special and the price structure has not adapted to take that into consideration.

      They have a lot of lock in on legacy systems but going forward... any time something gets redesigned... there's a good chance Oracle is either going to have to lower their rates or risk getting dropped permanently.

      --
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    4. Re:Market in action by DrXym · · Score: 2

      Oracle is largely indifferent to consumer complaints because most of their consumers are big organizations that are often captive to their products.

      Which is why most enterprise software sucks so badly. The rep only has to convince an exec to pay stupid money for a site licence and that software will be there forever. Even when it becomes obvious that it's awful and affecting productivity the company will be averse to switch for fear of losing the money they've already sunk on the thing. That's how people end up using crap like Notes despite very few people having anything positive to say about it.

    5. Re:Market in action by Karmashock · · Score: 2

      ehm... don't over play your hand. The culture from one organization to the next changes. At a lot of places they let the IT department handle it. The execs say what they want, they give a budget with the regular warning that things will be audited and you need to keep the costs as low as possible... and then they let the CIO or possibly lower down the chain deal with it.

      True, some CIOs are fuckwits but that's a reflection on the competence of the organization as a whole. Organizations in the 21st century with idiot CIOs are generally full of other problems that render that issue the least of their problems.

      A thing to consider as well is that just because software X or Y is shit under context M or L, you have to keep in mind your user base, maintenance, labor, etc.

      I'm a big believer in customizing GUIs to suit the job. I think too much of corporate america is sitting there looking at a windows desktop or a macos desktop or a linux desktop or a ios home screen etc. None of these things are designed for the specific application. So one of the things I make a point of is using various programs to create custom GUIs for different users and then I impose that on top of the operating system to constrain and simplify the use of the system for the intended function.

      The problems with the system and time spent training fell dramatically when I did this... the users only use a few different programs and that is it... and they constantly can't find shit that is right in front of their blind little eyes. So I gave them giant play school buttons and literally about four of them. The systme is also set up very clearly to only work one way which is the way I want it to work. And while I get the occasional douchebag saying "I can't install ittunes on this, help me do that"... most users understand because of the highly goal orrented interface that they're dealing with a WORK computer.

      The systems don't get viruses. They don't get malware. People are not jerking off to whatever because block all that nonsense with the firewalls.

      Its very civilized.

      And I think GUI is something that people want to make very generic and universal and the same everywhere. And I think that's wrong. I think the interface for jet shouldn't be the same as the interface for a commercial airlines as the same for a car as the same for a tractor as the same for corn combine. You have to have custom interfaces for different contexts.

      Sorry for the soap box rant. :) I just wanted to riff about that for a minute for my own sanity.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    6. Re:Market in action by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1

      The U.K. didn't get through to them. Oracle has lured them deeper into the cave. This will end up costing them way more than they had hoped.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    7. Re:Market in action by jandersen · · Score: 1

      I assume you mean customers when you say "consumers"?

      I have been a database developer and effectively dba for well over a decade, and I have worked with Oracle (from ver 6) as well as DB2, Sybase, Informix and MySQL. In my experience, Oracle win by a respectable margin on many fronts. I find their management interfaces better, nearly everything is visible in special views, for example. Their OCI API is not simple, but it is well worth learning. Their documentation is unparalleled for its thoroughness (but not all that easy to get into), and I have found their support team responsive and professional, although their support contracts are expensive. And the fact that you can freely download their database servers and use them for development and testing, is brilliant.

      I don't really know why people seem to be so hostile towards Oracle; they may have their reasons, but I would be surprised if it was because of the things I've seen mentioned here.

    8. Re:Market in action by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      The U.K. didn't get through to them. Oracle has lured them deeper into the cave. This will end up costing them way more than they had hoped.

      Follow. But! Follow only if ye be men of valor! For the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel, that no man yet has fought with it... and lived! BONES of full fifty men lie *strewn* about its lair! So! Brave knights! If you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth...

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    9. Re:Market in action by zlives · · Score: 1

      this is precisely why investing in real estate is a good answer.

    10. Re:Market in action by zlives · · Score: 1

      Holy EMP grenade of Antioch...

    11. Re:Market in action by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      Removing a single item of a package costing more significantly more than including it seems a *bit* odd though.

      Otherwise logically you'd buy all their products and the total bill would be $2.50.

      But no I'm sure Oracle has already thought of that. It will cost more to remove a product and it will cost more to add a product.

    12. Re:Market in action by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What an eccentric post.

  3. Onr Raging Asshole.... by wbr1 · · Score: 1

    The enhanced MoU will deliver (apparent) savings across government and allow easier and more effective funneling of tax payer funds to Oracle. It lays the foundation of a more co-dependent relationship between government and Oracle.

    FTFY

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
  4. Taxpayer's money ... GONE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The gomen will never stop to find ways to waste taxpayers' money

    So what else is new?

    1. Re:Taxpayer's money ... GONE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      "taxpayers' money"

      This is a religious term, implying there are "natural" aka "God-given" rights.

      Rights only exist with government there to enforce them.

      You only own n% of whatever because government takes the other (100-n)% via democratic (or whatever) mandate. That's not then "taxpayers' money", but Treasury money, spent according to the decisions made by elected representatives.

    2. Re:Taxpayer's money ... GONE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The concept of natural rights is useful. In practice, rights are what can be enforced, and a good definition of government is "a local monopoly on the use of force". However, rights and governments are often concerned with morality, which is often less concerned with what is practical. And yes, morality is often connected with religion but not necessarily so, and probably the concept of natural rights is separable from any given religion.

      I think you're on the right track but could stand to refine your expressions somewhat.

    3. Re:Taxpayer's money ... GONE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well without the government, I just take your shit while you sleep.

      Try staying away all day...

    4. Re:Taxpayer's money ... GONE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Without government, people would be using dogs and booby traps to protect their stuff and selves while they sleep. You might get a handful of successful robberies before getting your legs blown off by someone's defense system.

  5. I am the first to support this... by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Funny

    But, the MoU that the CCS and their CEO, and I expect SEO, EOC, PSS companies, PABs are all locked up into the same thing. It's obvious that the MOoP will go to the aforementioned people and organisations. There needs to be a PAOE regarding this decision which essentially equates to UVL giving Oracle PAPT. In the olden days, PO effectively influenced the issue of PMCs and if a PMC was enacted there would be a public outcry. Perhaps if people were given more fact then PAPT, MOoP and ESAs would be less prevalent. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case.

    1. Re:I am the first to support this... by deviated_prevert · · Score: 1

      But, the MoU that the CCS and their CEO, and I expect SEO, EOC, PSS companies, PABs are all locked up into the same thing. It's obvious that the MOoP will go to the aforementioned people and organisations. There needs to be a PAOE regarding this decision which essentially equates to UVL giving Oracle PAPT. In the olden days, PO effectively influenced the issue of PMCs and if a PMC was enacted there would be a public outcry. Perhaps if people were given more fact then PAPT, MOoP and ESAs would be less prevalent. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case.

      The GOV of UK SMON has run amok. And the PMON responsible for this decision has been sleeping with all things Larry again. I suspect the next stop for Oracle is quick trip to Ottawa before the CONS get the boot by JQ PUBLIC. Us canucks are just as stupid and hooked in as the brits when it comes to major software acquisitions. Hell a quick scramble of the books caused by a "software upgrade" here in Canada could go a long way in helping to hide the real costs of government in terms of tax dollars just before the election.

      Here we are even tolerating the sudden recent phony jumps in gasoline prices that jack up the public purse just before an election without a whisper of dissent. Even as the price of oil tanks our gas goes up regardless of consumption or refinery capacity. We are that easy to fool!

      It seems the current motto of our government is "if it ain't broke lets break it!" So I would not be surprised if Ottawa had sudden nondescript software issues with the public accounting systems. That way who ever comes to power will be in for a shock when they see the real books. It has happened in the past and seems to be a sport more than anything else when a political party that was in power gets into trouble just before an election. Someone should alert Larry to the business potential here, he could easily make more cash in a hurry instead of waiting on the courts to make a decision about how much cash Google should fork over! ORACLE is turning into a garbage collection company not a software house I guess that is why they bought out Sun in the first place. ;-?

      --
      This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
    2. Re:I am the first to support this... by ledow · · Score: 1

      Fuck.

      Someone get me a dictionary of acronyms.

    3. Re:I am the first to support this... by PPalmgren · · Score: 1

      But, the MoU that the CCS and their CEO, and I expect SEO, EOC, PSS companies, PABs are all locked up into the same thing. It's obvious that the MOoP will go to the aforementioned people and organisations. There needs to be a PAOE regarding this decision which essentially equates to UVL giving Oracle PAPT. In the olden days, PO effectively influenced the issue of PMCs and if a PMC was enacted there would be a public outcry. Perhaps if people were given more fact then PAPT, MOoP and ESAs would be less prevalent. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case.

      17 acronyms in 5 sentences. Is that a new record?

      Seriously though, as someone in another industry who doesn't know almost all of these acronyms, I couldn't tell if I was reading a joke or not.

    4. Re:I am the first to support this... by idontgno · · Score: 1

      Not sure if trolling or just PHB...

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    5. Re: I am the first to support this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After the 10th acronym I figured he was joking and trolling lol.

    6. Re:I am the first to support this... by zlives · · Score: 1

      no he was just on his way to a promotion.

    7. Re:I am the first to support this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .... price of oil tanks our gas goes up regardless of consumption or refinery capacity.

      Same in Australia. It's because the refineries have agreed to charge the price set by an international cabal, not the cost to sell. This keeps the number of barrels imported constant, thus giving the big exporters a stable market.

  6. What a waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Governments using our money should be using F/OSS exclusively and funding F/OSS projects if one doesn't quite suite their needs.

    1. Re:What a waste of money by GregoryOakley-steven · · Score: 1

      Totally agree. This would explain why the UK gov has horrid IT systems, if they funded O/S projects they could have the public help out to create an IT system that actually works. I bet it's oracle that they use to send out the letters to the deceased.

    2. Re:What a waste of money by rapiddescent · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I totally agree - I was an architect for a UK gov dept (many years ago) and whilst I was first to use Linux on a big scale in a secure environment; I couldn't get them to shift off Oracle - it was because they paid single figure % of list price, vastly lower than any financial organisation I've been at. I used Oracle 9iRAC and even their shitty Java Enterprise containers (this was before the Sun acquisition) because they were almost free and it would be rude not to. Proud that I got the first open source in there though, back then OSS in Gov was rare and when the Microsoft salesguy heard about this he went mental and did everything to spread FUD with whomever would listen.

    3. Re:What a waste of money by hughbar · · Score: 1

      Another me too. My borough Newham 'nearly' changed to Linux about 10 years ago. We need politicians and civil servants with a bit of courage and imagination. Of course, one or two of the first implementations will go wrong, but not 'wrong' like £6 billion odd that the Blair government wasted on the failed NHS project. I suspect that Corbyn will probably 'get' FOSS.

      It's 'interesting' that this is marked 'withdrawn': https://www.gov.uk/government/...

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
    4. Re: What a waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It needs to be based on TCO and there are short, medium and long term considerations. There is a move towards common standards across organisational units (the failed NHS project being an example) which might then mean a sufficient commonality to make the economy of scale for use if F/LOSS possible such that there would be enough demand to reduce the risk of any particular solution going away AND enough such that if the F/LOSS solution did fail a commercial contract could replace it at reasonable cost. Without such commonality then F/LOSS may represent too great a risk. If your mobile phone provider picks the wrong server architecture then you can pick a different provided but if the police do then you can't pick an alternative police force so government is by necessity more risk averse.

    5. Re:What a waste of money by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      What happens if that's actually vastly more expensive than the alternative?

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    6. Re:What a waste of money by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 2

      Hah! Not surprised.

      Used to work for the NHS IT Programme ; we loved F/OSS there. It was my default position when selecting technologies for system implementation, largely because my experience with getting support from closed-sources vendors was .. you didn't.

      With F/OSS stuff my experience if you can offer a coherent bug report to the original project, you get good support. Or you can patch it yourself. Or you can poke around in the source code and work out what particular quirk you're running into and how to get around it.

      Commercial software? No source code, and no support.

      I saved them annual license fees in excess of my salary while I was there. We were still stuck on Oracle though - that stuff has some lovely barbs like it's own SQL dialects, and of course, because we were a cost centre we never had the staff or time to move off it.

    7. Re:What a waste of money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've never seen that. F/LOSS isn't more expensive, but changing to it may cost so much as to not be possible until a major update happens.

      Contracted at a company for about a decade as a Solution Designer. Everyone knew I loved F/LOSS stuff and we used it for non-core needs all the time on my projects and for our group, but some of the core systems on my projects were extremely specialized and only available from 1 commercial vendor. They reamed us, repeatedly, annually, for decades. My boss asked me to swap out Windows for Linux on the 25K laptops used to troubleshoot and diagnose issues with the hardware and configs. These laptops ran highly proprietary drivers that only existed for WinXP. Nothing else. Porting each to Win7 was estimated at $2M for each driver - so $50M just to port the drivers - not the different diagnostic software packages which used the drivers to test the equipment. Porting to Linux wasn't ever considered, so I assumed the costs would be the same (knowing it wasn't the case). At that point, we were paying $26/seat for MSFT and MS-Office components. I ran the numbers for an annual cost of $5M ... approx. + another $1.5M for annual patching these sometimes-connected systems.

      We were never going to eat the porting costs to switch to Linux. All we could do is push the vendors towards Linux with the next round of hardware devices running in the wild. All the server software was Unix, so it wasn't like they didn't have the skills. At industry conferences, I spoke with all our peers around the world asking them to request Linux solutions too. Most of the non-western countries did and pushed for it at their next conversation. For 5 yrs, both Windows and Linux drivers would have to be available. At that point, I left the engagement and don't know what is happening.

      Retirement is good, especially if you are still young and can enjoy the free time.

  7. Not unexpected by higuita · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is not unexpected ... oracle is very expensive, with huge profits levels
    a big government complains about the price... oracle ignores it
    a big government complains again about the price... oracle ignores it again
    a big government complains publicly about the price... oracle ignores it yet another time
    a big government says it will start to abandon oracle products, knowing that it would be almost impossible to really do it... oracle gives a +10% price discount, just to shut up the complain... government can sing victory, everything is still the same

    All this considering no payments under the table

    Short term switch from oracle is hard, because if you use oracle, you are already stuck, you will need to change many things
    but long term switch could save a lot of money, even with the ever increasing discounts oracle

    Oracle gives ever increasing discounts oracle depending of the "customer" financial status/portfolio and risk of stopping using oracle product, usually low.
    As governments and very big corporations/banks are very "change resistant" and have huge amount of money, they usually have little or no discounts. But even a small 10% or 20% discount is a huge saving in oracle costs... but there are companies out there that get even 90% discounts.

    --
    Higuita
  8. well played by sad_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    license/support costs for oracle products were too high, oracle didn't care. release rumor that you'll drop oracle and use alternatives. get better license/support deal as a result. well played, but you still lose (as long as you stay with oracle).

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    1. Re:well played by BringMyShuttle · · Score: 1

      Government uses eminent domain all the time http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-... so I'd love to see them go nope your license fees are too high so I think we'll just take control of you :-)

  9. Uh-oh by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    They signed a contract with Oracle? Now yer screwed, and good!

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  10. golf course politics strikes again by Sadsfae · · Score: 1

    Smooth talking sales people and golf course nudges always override common sense and the squelched cries of underlings who have to support bad decisions made around vendor software, news at 11.

    --
    Have a squat over at the hobo house.
  11. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  12. Had to put the milk back in my nose by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    >> signed a deal with Oracle that should allow it to cut down on spending and licensing costs with the software provider

    "Should?" Thanks, I needed a good laugh this morning!!!

  13. Re:A truth we knew in the 1980s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Q: What do you call Oracle customers?

    A: Hostages.

    Q: What problem do returning Oracle customers have?
    A: Stockholm syndrome

  14. Re:A truth we knew in the 1980s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Q: What do you call Oracle customers?

    A: Hostages.

    Q: What problem do returning Oracle customers have?
    A: Stockholm syndrome

    Q: Why does Oracle rent external supercomputers usually used to calculate climate models?
    A: To calculate license costs. As the algorithms have a complexity of O(n^n)

  15. Ah, that's why... by purple_cobra · · Score: 1

    ...our hospital is being downsized: so we can pay for another gold toilet for Larry Ellison.

    1. Re:Ah, that's why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He snarked, as he sipped his Starbucks latte and checked Facebook on his iPhone.