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I went to a prominent tech school that adopted an Oracle platform for student course management in my last few years. I won't mince words: it was a piece of shi

I went to a prominent tech school that adopted an Oracle platform for student course management in my last few years. I won't mince words: it was a piece of shit, and my school's administrators ate shit by agreeing to a contract that forbid them from making any changes to Oracle's broken system. Now I work in college administration and we have to deal with the very same pile of junk. Someone once told me that Larry Ellison is the biggest asshole in Silicon Valley, and also the richest, so he must be doing something right. The same could be said for John D Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Is the world we have the world we want?

mgr86 11y ago
ok you are a hair away from my favorite oracle acronym. One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
cmiles74 11y ago
UMass Amherst was this side of non-functional for the first three days of the school year in 2005 because of a botched Peoplesoft (at that time recently purchased by Oracle) rollout. http://www.cio.com/article/2439102/enterprise-resource-planning/university-erp--big-mess-on-campus.html http://www.cio.com/article/2439102/enterprise-resource-plann...
- Decade 11y ago
  Hah! The guys at SFSU somehow forgot that. They just implemented a Peoplesoft last year, now a part of Oracle since forever, so no excuses for how badly it works.
greggyb 11y ago
You might want to fact check yourself on Rockefeller: Founded 1870, antitrust 1911: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil Crude prices in that time frame (and beyond): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oil_Prices_Since_1861.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oil_Prices_Since_186... Production in that time frame (having trouble finding a nice long time-series chart): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_industry#Modern_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_indus... If we want to make a strong claim of harmful monopoly[0], we should not expect to see a massive surge in production combined with an impressive decrease in price. [0]Here I use the term "harmful monopoly" to refer to a firm that has both market power (can influence prices by controlling supply) and uses it to increase its own profits. What we see instead is a time period where we do indeed have a dominant firm, but one behaving as if it were in a competitive market. The important characteristics of a competitive market here are low barriers to entry/exit, and a commodity product. There were incredibly low barriers to entry/exit, and oil has, for nearly its entire existence as a product in the modern age, been a commodity.
- bunderbunder 11y ago
  According to the very Wikipedia article you link, Standard Oil was found guilty of anticompetitive actions. Note that monopolistic behavior does not necessarily imply rising prices. See: Wal-Mart. Also see this quote from that Wikipedia article again: "The evidence is, in fact, absolutely conclusive that the Standard Oil Co. charges altogether excessive prices where it meets no competition, and particularly where there is little likelihood of competitors entering the field, and that, on the other hand, where competition is active, it frequently cuts prices to a point which leaves even the Standard little or no profit, and which more often leaves no profit to the competitor, whose costs are ordinarily somewhat higher."
  - greggyb 11y ago
    I believe we are going to be at an impasse here, but the quote you extracted illustrates the point I made, that Standard Oil acted as a competitive firm. We expect to see profit driven to zero in a competitive market, and that is what we saw in Standard Oil's pricing. In cases where there was little competition, that clearly indicates an area where the costs of the trade were such that the market price would be higher. The former is strictly competitive and the latter is strictly not anti-competitive.
    - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      I think we're going on the wrong track. What I meant was that Rockefeller and Ellison both show that wealth doesn't always come from producing value, but can also be made by abusing market dominance. Arguing the nuances of Standard Oil's behavior is a moot point when the Supreme Court settled that issue in 1911.
      - greggyb 11y ago
        I'll go out on a limb here and assume that you agree just as vehemently with the ruling in Citizens United?
        11y ago
balls187 11y ago
> Larry Ellison is the biggest asshole in Silicon Valley, and also the richest, so he must be doing something right. This weekend I learned that Larry Ellison purchased ~90% of an island in Hawaii.
- remarkEon 11y ago
  Bordering on Bond villain status at this point.

mgr86 11y ago

ok you are a hair away from my favorite oracle acronym. One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.

cmiles74 11y ago

UMass Amherst was this side of non-functional for the first three days of the school year in 2005 because of a botched Peoplesoft (at that time recently purchased by Oracle) rollout. http://www.cio.com/article/2439102/enterprise-resource-planning/university-erp--big-mess-on-campus.html http://www.cio.com/article/2439102/enterprise-resource-plann...

Decade 11y ago
Hah! The guys at SFSU somehow forgot that. They just implemented a Peoplesoft last year, now a part of Oracle since forever, so no excuses for how badly it works.

greggyb 11y ago

You might want to fact check yourself on Rockefeller: Founded 1870, antitrust 1911: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil Crude prices in that time frame (and beyond): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oil_Prices_Since_1861.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oil_Prices_Since_186... Production in that time frame (having trouble finding a nice long time-series chart): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_industry#Modern_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_indus... If we want to make a strong claim of harmful monopoly[0], we should not expect to see a massive surge in production combined with an impressive decrease in price. [0]Here I use the term "harmful monopoly" to refer to a firm that has both market power (can influence prices by controlling supply) and uses it to increase its own profits. What we see instead is a time period where we do indeed have a dominant firm, but one behaving as if it were in a competitive market. The important characteristics of a competitive market here are low barriers to entry/exit, and a commodity product. There were incredibly low barriers to entry/exit, and oil has, for nearly its entire existence as a product in the modern age, been a commodity.

bunderbunder 11y ago
According to the very Wikipedia article you link, Standard Oil was found guilty of anticompetitive actions. Note that monopolistic behavior does not necessarily imply rising prices. See: Wal-Mart. Also see this quote from that Wikipedia article again: "The evidence is, in fact, absolutely conclusive that the Standard Oil Co. charges altogether excessive prices where it meets no competition, and particularly where there is little likelihood of competitors entering the field, and that, on the other hand, where competition is active, it frequently cuts prices to a point which leaves even the Standard little or no profit, and which more often leaves no profit to the competitor, whose costs are ordinarily somewhat higher."
- greggyb 11y ago
  I believe we are going to be at an impasse here, but the quote you extracted illustrates the point I made, that Standard Oil acted as a competitive firm. We expect to see profit driven to zero in a competitive market, and that is what we saw in Standard Oil's pricing. In cases where there was little competition, that clearly indicates an area where the costs of the trade were such that the market price would be higher. The former is strictly competitive and the latter is strictly not anti-competitive.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    I think we're going on the wrong track. What I meant was that Rockefeller and Ellison both show that wealth doesn't always come from producing value, but can also be made by abusing market dominance. Arguing the nuances of Standard Oil's behavior is a moot point when the Supreme Court settled that issue in 1911.
    - greggyb 11y ago
      I'll go out on a limb here and assume that you agree just as vehemently with the ruling in Citizens United?
      - 11y ago

balls187 11y ago

> Larry Ellison is the biggest asshole in Silicon Valley, and also the richest, so he must be doing something right. This weekend I learned that Larry Ellison purchased ~90% of an island in Hawaii.

remarkEon 11y ago
Bordering on Bond villain status at this point.