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Oracle's Aggressive Sales Tactics Are Backfiring With Customers (lightreading.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Oracle's aggressive sales tactics are turning off customers, setting a roadblock in the company's race to catch up with Amazon Web Services in the cloud, according to a report on The Information. [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. Oracle is threatening customers of its on-premises software with potentially expensive usage audits and strongly suggesting those customers could solve their problems by moving to the cloud, The Information says. But the tactic is backfiring. "Several big Oracle customers, including oil and gas exploration company Halliburton, toy maker Mattel and electricity provider Edison Southern California, have recently rejected big cloud services deals proposed by Oracle, according to an Oracle employee with knowledge of the situation," the publication reported. "Oracle representatives had suggested the customers strike the deals to avoid expensive audits of how they were using Oracle software, according to the employee. Instead, that approach to selling cloud is irritating customers," it added.
What happened was that accountants and MBAs took over the running of their companies, and all they know is that the purpose of any and all companies is to maximise shareholder value.
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It's racketeering.
Then it's time to hit Oracle with a RICO Act . . .
. . . if Oracle hasn't already paid off the district attorneys . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
No, they couldn't. The provisions in the enterprise schemes that Oracle and other large IT organisations set up in return for offering deep discounts to their biggest customers almost invariably contain significant obligations around audits, which will be expensive and disruptive regardless of whether anything contravening any terms is actually found.
The correct solution is probably to respond in kind. "Nice Oracle deployment we've got, and quite lucrative for you guys over many years now. Be a shame if the relationship broke down and we had to spend that money migrating our whole infrastructure to [competitor] instead."
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"Oracle representatives had suggested the customers strike the deals to avoid expensive audits of how they were using Oracle software, according to the employee. Instead, that approach to selling cloud is irritating customers,"
But are they irritated enough to bit the bullet, port their mission-critical processes to a non-Oracle database and kiss Oracle goodbye? (If not, they've knuckled under and are going to be locked in to Oracle's products and pricing forever - or at least until a later generation of their own management.)
If Oracle is already pressuring them to port to a different DB (their cloud product) they've got a golden opportunity. Yes it might be more effort to port to some other DB then Oracle's own "other DB". But much of the work to absorb any differences - the port, the testing, and the dual-DB cya period - will be the same in either case. So it's only an increment, rather than the whole price of a DB port, to go to a different DB.
... and switch to? The only thing equal is MS SQL Server which is also expensive and could do the same shit Oracle did.
No MySQL and PostGreSQL are not options unless you serve web content and do simple database stuff. People who buy MS SQL Server and Oracle use their AI, financial, and advanced reporting tools. Business Intelligence APIs are HUGE right now and it is also possible it is not them but their other software they purchased is using Oracle as a requirement.
In the old days when software was made in house you could avoid these problems. But the MBA's love packaged software for savings RIGHT NOW and this is what you get.
http://saveie6.com/
Since when was Oracle run by 'software geeks'?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It's about the same as an IRS agent approaching you and saying "It'd be a real shame if you got audited. I hear some agents are being very, very thorough these days. No stone unturned. Oh! On a completely unrelated note, I need a favor from you..."
Because once the application are written to one flavor of SQL and the large amount data stored into that database, it is prohibitively expensive and disruptive to migrate out, so the vendor has an upper-hand to the existing large paying customers (who typically have under-trained developers.) This strategy would only backfire in attracting future customers once the stories spread out.
You get stuck with the sunk cost problem. You're spent tons of money rolling things out to support Oracle. Now the yearly cost is high, but it's still a lot smaller than starting from scratch, so the companies stick with it. Never mind that the IT staff that are trained in Oracle and don't have experience in anything else have a vested interest in keeping Oracle lest they get replaced at the same time that Oracle is replaced.
I recall being on an implementation one time where Microsoft had given the client a sweetheart deal on SQL Server. Basically gave it to them for free. So right in the middle of the project they decide that we are switching from Oracle database to SQL Server database. In the Enterprise Software game this is a big deal.
Since Oracle also owns the application software, as well as the database, the SQL is written optimally for Oracle. While they support other DBs like SQL Server and DB2, the bug fixes arrive earlier for Oracle. We had to tune every line of SQL, every query, every report. Reports that took 30 seconds to run in Oracle were taking 5 minutes to run in SQL Server. We got it done in the end but it was basically a nightmare.
I see others on this thread saying just switch to Postgre SQL. If it's not tied to back end applications that are also from Oracle then sure, it might be a viable option. When you are running Enterprise software that is essentially running your entire business (HR, Payroll, Financials, Inventory, Logistics, etc.) then it is going to be a very tough sell trying to convince your CIO or CEO to switch to a different database platform. The risk is simply too great. Most likely you are going to be told to suck it up and make it work.
Oracle, of course, knows this and that is what allows them to get away with these strong arm tactics. I suspect this is a large part of the reason they got into the Enterprise software business in the first place. It gets their hooks further into the client and makes it all that much more difficult to exit. It is also part of the reason that they are taking the threats from Workday and other cloud vendors so seriously. It is one of the few ways that companies can escape the clutches of Oracle and still run their business without undue risk. Now, cloud software presents risks of its own but that's another discussion for another day :-)