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Oracle is not a tech driven firm. It is sales driven, meaning their sales teams are world class at ingratiating themselves with decision makers at "big stodgy

by uli00 8y ago

Oracle is not a tech driven firm. It is sales driven, meaning their sales teams are world class at ingratiating themselves with decision makers at "big stodgy companies". How do you explain why they survived all this time. Very very few of the top Tech firms use any Oracle software for atleast the last 10-12 years now. Some even have internal procurement bans!

tyingq 8y ago
Sure, not disputing how they got where they are. I'm speculating that none of that helps them from here. Big stodgy companies, their bread and butter, are now tired of Oracle's shit. And, they now have lots of credible options.
brianwawok 8y ago
They USED to have world class software. Compare Oracle DB to the competitors 10 years ago. They were at least GOOD. Lots of good features for giant companies. Competitors have gotten a lot better over the last 10 years. Oracle has mostly just raised pricing. It works for a while, but at the current path I don't see Oracle the company existing in 20 years.
- ksec 8y ago
  I would say arguably they ARE still world class. It is just most people don't need or cant justify their price tag when competition has caught on with clear Roadmap and sustainability. So basically they have a shrinking value proposition and they are rising prices. ( Why does that sound so much like Apple, Now I am worried )
  - pmart123 8y ago
    I love my earpods and I think it shows they still are at the top when it comes to innovating on consumer devices. Using Apple Pay also makes so much sense for the consumer as it limits your CC data being at every retailer since Apple Pay tokenizes the sensitive information. If you want to see where Apple is going, checkout the Apple Healthkit API: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/healthkit/samples/accessing_health_records https://developer.apple.com/documentation/healthkit/samples/... While it is too soon to say that Apple will own the market, Apple is the only big tech company that has positioned itself for privacy and trust, giving it the best chance to own this market of the big four.
- amluto 8y ago
  “Good” depends on the use case. I used Oracle once, about ten years ago. The client library was so big and bloated that just loading it took the majority of the total running time of my not-terribly-long-running program. Not to mention that figuring out the connection strings is so miserably complicated that you basically need a trained expert to figure it out. The docs were worthless. I think I can spin up an entire blank MySQL instance faster than I could connect to an existing Oracle database back then.
  - brianwawok 8y ago
    Well if you don’t need the features then clearly you are not the target. The oracle DB is going to support many different things compared to your MySQL cluster.
    - amluto 8y ago
      I was most definitely not the target. But having such a miserable experience just accomplishing the basics did not make me at all inclined to consider Oracle for future projects.
Spooky23 8y ago
How are they doing their financials?
pmart123 8y ago
>>> Very very few of the top Tech firms use any Oracle software for atleast the last 10-12 years now. I think you missed the word "new" in there. Amazon finally is cutting ties with its Oracle DB this year. While I won't be surprised if AWS starts offering "migrate off Oracle" as a consulting service, Oracle was still the standard through the 2000s. I think they have built up so much negative goodwill though that no startup would ever consider using Oracle even if they gave the first five years away for free.
- solatic 8y ago
  > While I won't be surprised if AWS starts offering "migrate off Oracle" as a consulting service If AWS can offer a database that satisfies the Mongo API (DocumentDB), then why couldn't Amazon offer a database that satisfies the Oracle DB API, complete with automatic migration? The day that happens is the day Oracle stock goes straight in the toilet.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    I suspect that would resurrect something like the Oracle vs Google lawsuit, where an API signature is somehow a thing you can copyright.
  - godzillabrennus 8y ago
    Mongo was open source. They copied the api under that license. My understanding, and I’m not a lawyer so don’t consider this legal advice, is that you can’t copy a commercial api or it’s infringing on their intellectual property.
    - tyingq 8y ago
      The mongo example is a bit odd since the open source license was AGPL. Sounds like you can copy an AGPL API signature without releasing your own source?
    - Itaxpica 8y ago
      The copyrightability of APIs (specifically Oracle’s APIs, even!) is at the heart of a lengthy and still-ongoing legal battle, with several decisions in both directions.
microdrum 8y ago
The entire Amazon retail business is on Oracle DB.
- grumpydba 8y ago
  It was migrated away to aurora

by uli00 8y ago

tyingq 8y ago

Sure, not disputing how they got where they are. I'm speculating that none of that helps them from here. Big stodgy companies, their bread and butter, are now tired of Oracle's shit. And, they now have lots of credible options.

brianwawok 8y ago

They USED to have world class software. Compare Oracle DB to the competitors 10 years ago. They were at least GOOD. Lots of good features for giant companies. Competitors have gotten a lot better over the last 10 years. Oracle has mostly just raised pricing. It works for a while, but at the current path I don't see Oracle the company existing in 20 years.

ksec 8y ago
I would say arguably they ARE still world class. It is just most people don't need or cant justify their price tag when competition has caught on with clear Roadmap and sustainability. So basically they have a shrinking value proposition and they are rising prices. ( Why does that sound so much like Apple, Now I am worried )
- pmart123 8y ago
  I love my earpods and I think it shows they still are at the top when it comes to innovating on consumer devices. Using Apple Pay also makes so much sense for the consumer as it limits your CC data being at every retailer since Apple Pay tokenizes the sensitive information. If you want to see where Apple is going, checkout the Apple Healthkit API: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/healthkit/samples/accessing_health_records https://developer.apple.com/documentation/healthkit/samples/... While it is too soon to say that Apple will own the market, Apple is the only big tech company that has positioned itself for privacy and trust, giving it the best chance to own this market of the big four.
amluto 8y ago
“Good” depends on the use case. I used Oracle once, about ten years ago. The client library was so big and bloated that just loading it took the majority of the total running time of my not-terribly-long-running program. Not to mention that figuring out the connection strings is so miserably complicated that you basically need a trained expert to figure it out. The docs were worthless. I think I can spin up an entire blank MySQL instance faster than I could connect to an existing Oracle database back then.
- brianwawok 8y ago
  Well if you don’t need the features then clearly you are not the target. The oracle DB is going to support many different things compared to your MySQL cluster.
  - amluto 8y ago
    I was most definitely not the target. But having such a miserable experience just accomplishing the basics did not make me at all inclined to consider Oracle for future projects.

Spooky23 8y ago

How are they doing their financials?

pmart123 8y ago

>>> Very very few of the top Tech firms use any Oracle software for atleast the last 10-12 years now. I think you missed the word "new" in there. Amazon finally is cutting ties with its Oracle DB this year. While I won't be surprised if AWS starts offering "migrate off Oracle" as a consulting service, Oracle was still the standard through the 2000s. I think they have built up so much negative goodwill though that no startup would ever consider using Oracle even if they gave the first five years away for free.

solatic 8y ago
> While I won't be surprised if AWS starts offering "migrate off Oracle" as a consulting service If AWS can offer a database that satisfies the Mongo API (DocumentDB), then why couldn't Amazon offer a database that satisfies the Oracle DB API, complete with automatic migration? The day that happens is the day Oracle stock goes straight in the toilet.
- tyingq 8y ago
  I suspect that would resurrect something like the Oracle vs Google lawsuit, where an API signature is somehow a thing you can copyright.
- godzillabrennus 8y ago
  Mongo was open source. They copied the api under that license. My understanding, and I’m not a lawyer so don’t consider this legal advice, is that you can’t copy a commercial api or it’s infringing on their intellectual property.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    The mongo example is a bit odd since the open source license was AGPL. Sounds like you can copy an AGPL API signature without releasing your own source?
  - Itaxpica 8y ago
    The copyrightability of APIs (specifically Oracle’s APIs, even!) is at the heart of a lengthy and still-ongoing legal battle, with several decisions in both directions.

microdrum 8y ago

The entire Amazon retail business is on Oracle DB.

grumpydba 8y ago
It was migrated away to aurora