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Oregon Settles $6 Billion Lawsuit Over Oracle's Botched Healthcare Website (registerguard.com)
"While the crippled website eventually worked, Oregon failed to enroll a single person online [and] had to resort to hiring 400 people to process paper applications." An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the AP:
The state paid Oracle $240 million to create its Cover Oregon website but ultimately abandoned the site and joined the federal exchange to comply with the Affordable Care Act... The state initially asked for more than $6 billion in punitive damages when it filed the lawsuit in 2014 against the Redwood City company, but Oregon ultimately accepted a package that included $35 million in cash payments and software licensing agreements and technical support with an estimated upfront worth of $60 million...
Six years of unlimited Oracle software and technical support included in the deal will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in years to come and ends a bitter legal battle that has damaged Oregon's "collective psyche," Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement. "The beauty of the deal is that if we choose to take full advantage of the free (software), we are uniquely situated to modernize our statewide IT systems over the next six years -- something we could not otherwise afford to do," she said.
"Oracle has insisted the website worked but former Gov. John Kitzhaber chose not to use it for political reasons."
Six years of unlimited Oracle software and technical support included in the deal will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in years to come and ends a bitter legal battle that has damaged Oregon's "collective psyche," Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement. "The beauty of the deal is that if we choose to take full advantage of the free (software), we are uniquely situated to modernize our statewide IT systems over the next six years -- something we could not otherwise afford to do," she said.
"Oracle has insisted the website worked but former Gov. John Kitzhaber chose not to use it for political reasons."
> Oregon ultimately accepted a package that included $35 million in cash payments and software licensing agreements and technical support with an estimated upfront worth of $60 million.
Software licensing which will probably cost them more than $95 in the next few year(s) because they are not using the software according to the license.
... they will generate a very big cash-flow for Oracle, since they are now uniquely situated to completely vendor-lock-in their statewide IT systems?
Just wait until they do all those resource intensive upgrades and locked all their systems to Oracle, and then find out what the licensing/maintenance fees are from the 7th year onward.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Oracle avoids a $6 Billion lawsuit
Oracle nets $200 million after a small reimbursement
Oracle potentially gives away software that creates a lifetime dependency on their products going forward
Oracle hasn't actually given away any software yet
Win/Win
for Oracle
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Caveat: I'm no friend of Oracle, and as much as both sides in this were odious, I was actually voting for the state.
I live here, and have connections in government IT. The inside word is that this was largely botched on the government side, with too high expectations, too many changes, and huge feature creep. I would argue that Oracle's mistake was not getting out when they plainly saw that this was a dysfunctional working relationship.
But look what Oracle offered -- a paltry (by their standards) sum, amounting to a roughly 15% discount on the original price tag, plus licenses that lock Oregon into more dependence on Oracle, which are guaranteed to make money for Oracle down the road.
One can paint this as a victory for Oregon with inflammatory headlines, but it looks to me like Oracle won in the end. (And since this is Oracle, "the end" is exactly what you imagine it to be.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This guy seriously needs something bad to happen to his company. It's a running sore on the buttocks of the Earth.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The beauty of the deal is that if we choose to take full advantage of the free (software), we are uniquely situated to modernize our statewide IT systems over the next six years
NO! Modernizing your IT systems does not involve purchasing the most expensive Legacy SQL Server software on the block.
Also, what happens when the 6 Years run out? The state will probably be paying Oracle more than $100 Million a year in licensing fees thanks to their "Free" deal, and now all their IT systems will be tied to Oracle's expensive legacy SQL products, instead of more affordable ones such as PostgreSQL, Hypertable/Cassandra or even Microsoft SQL Server.
Six years of unlimited Oracle software and technical support included in the deal will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in years to come ... "The beauty of the deal is that if we choose to take full advantage of the free (software), we are uniquely situated to modernize our statewide IT systems over the next six years -- something we could not otherwise afford to do," she said.
No, the beauty of the deal is that if you do choose to take full advantage of the free software and modernize you systems, then you'll be on the hook to Oracle for even more money for licensing and support *after* the six years of freebies runs out -- unless you then want to scrap your Oracle systems. Points: Oracle
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So, maybe somebody here can answer this...
Why would you use Oracle for anything? Is there really something that Oracle does that an open-source database can't do? I mean, they're clearly a horrific company to do business with, it would seem that if there's any other solution that would work it would be an obvious choice not to use Oracle.
I'm not a database guy, it's a real question.
"Private sector insurance and healthcare"
Not quite exactly unlike that. Large scale healthcare in the US is a kludge (that's the nice word) of dozens of different, overlapping, often contradicting Federal, State, International (i.e., the World Health Organization), public (at other levels), private, public-private, for profit, not for profit, 501C3 corps (bog help me if I can figure them out organizations.
The crippled horse rolled out of the 'free market' barn in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare enabling act (actually first suggested by Harry Truman).
Bog knows what you'd call the current system other than an enormous clusterfuck.
(sorry for the parenthesis, In Seattle, too much coffee.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Boy the line "Six years of unlimited Oracle software and technical support included in the deal will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in years to come" is special. I hope we use the next six year of support to get off of Oracle solutions. (Save the state hundreds of millions of dollars.... yea.
The government people overseeing the project got to keep 100% of their paychecks.
Let's assume those 400 people hired to handle paper were an inferior result, but they couldn't have been too horrible or the state would have been browbeaten into hiring more. So I'm going to spitball that 800 staff at an average of $70K per year each (with all bennies and burdens, they'd probably gross $50K), would cost $56 million a year...or $240 million over 4.2 years, not an indecent lifespan for a major web app these days.
So frankly, what's the point in automating at all, if it's going to be as expensive as a decent manual solution that would have been up and running in 3 months?
Because using open source means you yourself are accountable. If Oregon had done this project with an open source database and it had failed, the government would be the one bearing the blame. Hiring a big-name company to do it means if something goes wrong, the government's butts are covered. They hired a well-known company to do it for them. If the company couldn't do it, then obviously it must be the company's fault!
(I use "the government" here only because it's specific to this case and lets me avoid confusing pronouns. The same thing happens when companies choose Oracle or Microsoft or IBM or any other big name without really doing a serious analysis.)
The free market was dead as soon as somebody had the bright idea to make medicine a subscription service.
The government people overseeing the project got to keep 100% of their paychecks.
Yes, but several of the high-level ones lost 100% of their jobs following the debacle, you anti-government troll.
That is all.
Shit, anyone who even googles it should have already known how Oracle fucked up the California DMV job twenty or so years ago.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But what if the real problem is that nobody really WANTED to sign up? Yeah, yeah, that's probably not the case but it is amusing.
Oracle won't realize they lost the lawsuit until Oregon refuses to accept all that free Oracle software.
Nicely played, Oregon.
John Oliver on Oregon
This is not one of the ones Oliver knocked out of the park. Nor does it actually end "nicely played, Oregon".
Oracle writes software that doesn't work ...
Oregon sues Oracle over non-working software
Lawsuit is settled by Oracle giving Oregon more software for free
BUT THE WHOLE POINT IS ORACLE'S SOFTWARE DIDN'T FUCKING WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE
Why the hell would Oregon settle for MORE of the same bullshit that started the lawsuit in the first place!?
Europeans money is worth more
They get more vacation
They get free college
They have free healthcare
They live longer
They have lower infant mortality
They have more holidays
We have been fucked and we argue that the government is screwed up. We screwed up when we let corporations destroy our government.
Letting Larry really get his claws into the state, after one of the most egregious fuck ups Oracle could possibly manage? What the frell is wrong with these people? What the hell happened here, and why did Oregon- like a complete sucker- agree to let themselves be completely swindled for a second time, like a total n00b sucker? The poor people of Oregon, you failed to get software built for yourself in a inglorious fashion, now you are again being taken.
Can fugu chefs use that defense?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Is this "Free software" or a Trojan horse?
"They fucked up majorly to the point where we sued them, but then offered us some more of the software they fucked up for free, and we can tie ourselves into them more, so we thought that's a great deal and a good use of taxpayer's money!"
Most contract based negotiations involve determining the performance. I hate Oracle as much as anyone in IT, but playing devils advocate and knowing how IT projects in various governments often present a moving target there's a chance that the government took this offer because the courts may actually find it more in Oracle's favour.
Remember Oracle delivered something. The criteria is not a black and white it works = 100%, it doesn't = 0%.
And then Oregonians just turn around and let the government run even more of their lives. Because we all know, piping money through the government is the pinnacle of efficiency.
Who else would you blame it on? Picking a bad vendor and writing bad contracts is pretty much the essence of inefficient and corrupt government. The members of the Oregon government wasted this money because it wasn't their money so they didn't give a f*ck. And instead of going bankrupt over it, like most private businesses would have done after wasting that much money, since they are government, they can simply raise taxes and do it all over again and again.
morons just got bent over again. 6 years is a tiny investment for Oracle who will likely have such a stranglehold and vendor lockin by the end of those 6 years that they will reap hundreds of millions from the deal. Basically they got raped and agreed as compensation to be repeatedly raped again.
At the end of six years of free period, everything in Oregon government establishment, including simple websites will be using Oracle DB & systems, resulting in huge ongoing revenue for Oracle.
Ok so "software licensing agreements and technical support with an estimated upfront worth of $60 million..." but somehow "six years of unlimited Oracle software and technical support included in the deal will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in years to come"?
The only thing I can think of that paying those 60 million somehow costs the state of Oregon 100's of millions. That's one hell of of an overhead cost! No wonder they couldn't make the website work, for every $1 in insurance premium collected would have costed the state 10's of dollars I guess. Oracle saved them money by forcing them to go with the federal solution.
Maybe it's like with pumping gas in Oregon, they have laws that state that every check made for software licensing must go though a minimum number of bureaucrats and each bureaucrat has a fixed fee for processing the payment.
Or maybe it's the lawyer speak, "the $1 we save today will save billions" which is technically true if we invest that $1 today and the billions saved are in a billion years or so, assuming low risk returns. After all, this statement did come from an Attorney (General).
What's the deal?
Sorry to tell you buddy, but what you're promoting is anarcho-capitalism, and that is probably worse than anything we have going on right now.
Trying to say that we'd be better off if we just completely de-funded modern infrastructure would be like saying committing suicide would be appropriate to prescribe oneself for a bad migraine.
Six years of unlimited Oracle software and technical support included in the deal will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in years to come and ends a bitter legal battle
Oracle wins
So this is how they get their business...they F-up and still win. amazing.
My last job was outsourced for pennies on the dollar, guess Oracle will do the same....profit! Way To Go Oracle, you suck!
Anyone who has had to update, maintain or change a mainframe based system where Oracle is involved understands all too well....pathetic.