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I'm surprised companies still buy Oracle software, I figured that they were only in business because of Vendor lock in from governments and large corporations.

bigiain 9y ago
Because Oracle do not sell to the sort of people who read Hackernews, they sell to people who read Financial Review and CIO Monthly or whatever. Same as SalesForce, Adobe, and a whole bunch of other "enterprise" software businesses that most dev's ignore or write off as pointless. I worked at a place where I saw two renewals for AdobeCQ licenses paid while I worked there at ~$600k/year, all the time we were using Alfresco underneath (and I see now that site is running on Sitecore...)
- disordinary 9y ago
  Probably, although I work for a government department that uses Oracle extensively but no new projects are on the platform, eventually everything will be migrated off it (mostly to the SQL Server hosted on Azure).
  - bigiain 9y ago
    And let me guess - the project timelines for "eventually everything will be migrated off it" run easily into seven figures of Oracle invoices? (And realistically the delays in those migration projects will mean double that gets paid to Oracle before they're completely out of your billing system?)
    - disordinary 9y ago
      I don't think there's any real timeline to get rid of Oracle just that new projects won't be using it as a DB and eventually it will no longer be in use.
      - toyg 9y ago
        Like eventually nobody will be using mainframes... except they are still there, and somebody is still cashing cheques for their support. Ironically, it's Oracle itself who is busy self-destroying. The move to cloud-based subscription services, where switching to competitors can be so much easier, looks good in the immediate but it's pulverizing their stranglehold on partner ecosystems, and making their long-term outlook more fragile.
- ryanmarsh 9y ago
  > Financial Review and CIO Monthly Yes, bean counters. When the only sales person involved is now the AWS Architect the bean counters put Postgres and Oracle side by side and it becomes a no brainer. You're going to see lots of enterprise development moving away from Oracle as they move to AWS.
  - bigiain 9y ago
    I'm not so sure it's the stereotypical "beancounter" here. There seems to be absolutely no penny pinching going on (which is the impression I get from "beancounter"). I'd say it's more the "Contract Signers" who're at fault. The devs and AWS Architect are perfectly happy to use inexpensive AWS options, but somebody _else_ goes golfing and drinking with the Oracle sales team - and arrives at work hung over the next day with a shiny new half million dollar a year Oracle licence which everyone else is now required to use.
davidgerard 9y ago
The Oracle database is very good at its job: take data in, give it back fast and reliably, optimise bad queries, etc. The interface can be hair-tearingly awful, but the software fundamentally works. The bad part of running Oracle is absolutely everything else, especially the bit where you ever have to talk to Oracle. When we moved our stuff from Oracle to Postgres, the best bit was never ever having to think about licensing.
Lev1a 9y ago
The DB course at my university uses Oracle software and references to DB software in my professors lectures are almost exclusively about Oracle (SQL Developer or something).

bigiain 9y ago

Because Oracle do not sell to the sort of people who read Hackernews, they sell to people who read Financial Review and CIO Monthly or whatever. Same as SalesForce, Adobe, and a whole bunch of other "enterprise" software businesses that most dev's ignore or write off as pointless. I worked at a place where I saw two renewals for AdobeCQ licenses paid while I worked there at ~$600k/year, all the time we were using Alfresco underneath (and I see now that site is running on Sitecore...)

disordinary 9y ago
Probably, although I work for a government department that uses Oracle extensively but no new projects are on the platform, eventually everything will be migrated off it (mostly to the SQL Server hosted on Azure).
- bigiain 9y ago
  And let me guess - the project timelines for "eventually everything will be migrated off it" run easily into seven figures of Oracle invoices? (And realistically the delays in those migration projects will mean double that gets paid to Oracle before they're completely out of your billing system?)
  - disordinary 9y ago
    I don't think there's any real timeline to get rid of Oracle just that new projects won't be using it as a DB and eventually it will no longer be in use.
    - toyg 9y ago
      Like eventually nobody will be using mainframes... except they are still there, and somebody is still cashing cheques for their support. Ironically, it's Oracle itself who is busy self-destroying. The move to cloud-based subscription services, where switching to competitors can be so much easier, looks good in the immediate but it's pulverizing their stranglehold on partner ecosystems, and making their long-term outlook more fragile.
ryanmarsh 9y ago
> Financial Review and CIO Monthly Yes, bean counters. When the only sales person involved is now the AWS Architect the bean counters put Postgres and Oracle side by side and it becomes a no brainer. You're going to see lots of enterprise development moving away from Oracle as they move to AWS.
- bigiain 9y ago
  I'm not so sure it's the stereotypical "beancounter" here. There seems to be absolutely no penny pinching going on (which is the impression I get from "beancounter"). I'd say it's more the "Contract Signers" who're at fault. The devs and AWS Architect are perfectly happy to use inexpensive AWS options, but somebody _else_ goes golfing and drinking with the Oracle sales team - and arrives at work hung over the next day with a shiny new half million dollar a year Oracle licence which everyone else is now required to use.

davidgerard 9y ago

The Oracle database is very good at its job: take data in, give it back fast and reliably, optimise bad queries, etc. The interface can be hair-tearingly awful, but the software fundamentally works. The bad part of running Oracle is absolutely everything else, especially the bit where you ever have to talk to Oracle. When we moved our stuff from Oracle to Postgres, the best bit was never ever having to think about licensing.

Lev1a 9y ago

The DB course at my university uses Oracle software and references to DB software in my professors lectures are almost exclusively about Oracle (SQL Developer or something).