4 ms·

Oracle customers fear its reaction if they use Amazon's or Microsoft's cloud

46 points by kaboro 8y ago

Majromax 8y ago
This article appears to be particularly low-effort, designed to engender fear more than enlighten. The core thesis is that Oracle customers fear license audits if they use a non-Oracle cloud platform. On the face of it, that fear seems reasonable enough, since this is the kind of anti-competitive behaviour that a company could reasonably be capable of. However: * That "fear" is based on a report from a single survey, and the survey results are locked behind a register-to-read e-book. * That survey was sponsored by a company in the business of migrating customers to Oracle cloud services (on arbitrary clouds), and the e-book -- presumably with marketing intent -- describes how to manage licensing issues. This firm has unclean hands, since it financially benefits from assuaging customers' licensing fears. Furthermore, the article punts on the question of whether this fear is reasonable. It provides a confirmatory opinion only from a CEO of a company providing audit defense services, who obviously has a very direct, financial incentive in sparking fears to assuage for money. Furthermore, despite this CEO having previously worked for Oracle, he is not quoted as asserting that Oracle actually engaged in audits for anticompetitive purposes -- at most he speculates that Oracle's sales team would raise licensing FUD. Finally, despite this story being of no urgency, it appears the journalist has not waited to give Oracle a reasonable time to respond. The article states that "Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment," yet evidently the inciting e-book was only publicly released this morning (https://twitter.com/AppsAssociates/status/1110533063581331456 https://twitter.com/AppsAssociates/status/111053306358133145...). I'm disappointed. In my book this is borderline unethical journalism, since the article insinuates practices that would be sensational if proven, without evidence that there's any substance behind the story.
- yond89712 8y ago
  Please disclose whether you're an employee of Oracle
- peteypao 8y ago
  Pretty much what you can expect from Business Insider.
  - franciscojgo 8y ago
    This. What's more troubling is how they now put up a paywall for what is usually clickbaity, "want-to-get-this-viral" content.
    - huzaif 8y ago
      If you have ublock origin (or any other ad blocker I imagine) you can zap away their blocking pop-up.
- startupnamefind 8y ago
  Not entirely https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3071114/oracle-cloud-growth-driven-by-threats-to-customers-claims-shareholder-lawsuit https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3071114/oracle-cloud-gr...
  - Majromax 8y ago
    That's interesting to read, since it provides an additional air of credibility to the reported fears. I wish that the Business Insider article had linked or at least mentioned it, but if they did then perhaps "customers are scared of Oracle" would not have seemed like breaking news.

46 points by kaboro 8y ago

This article appears to be particularly low-effort, designed to engender fear more than enlighten. The core thesis is that Oracle customers fear license audits if they use a non-Oracle cloud platform. On the face of it, that fear seems reasonable enough, since this is the kind of anti-competitive behaviour that a company could reasonably be capable of. However: * That "fear" is based on a report from a single survey, and the survey results are locked behind a register-to-read e-book. * That survey was sponsored by a company in the business of migrating customers to Oracle cloud services (on arbitrary clouds), and the e-book -- presumably with marketing intent -- describes how to manage licensing issues. This firm has unclean hands, since it financially benefits from assuaging customers' licensing fears. Furthermore, the article punts on the question of whether this fear is reasonable. It provides a confirmatory opinion only from a CEO of a company providing audit defense services, who obviously has a very direct, financial incentive in sparking fears to assuage for money. Furthermore, despite this CEO having previously worked for Oracle, he is not quoted as asserting that Oracle actually engaged in audits for anticompetitive purposes -- at most he speculates that Oracle's sales team would raise licensing FUD. Finally, despite this story being of no urgency, it appears the journalist has not waited to give Oracle a reasonable time to respond. The article states that "Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment," yet evidently the inciting e-book was only publicly released this morning (https://twitter.com/AppsAssociates/status/1110533063581331456 https://twitter.com/AppsAssociates/status/111053306358133145...). I'm disappointed. In my book this is borderline unethical journalism, since the article insinuates practices that would be sensational if proven, without evidence that there's any substance behind the story.

yond89712 8y ago
Please disclose whether you're an employee of Oracle
peteypao 8y ago
Pretty much what you can expect from Business Insider.
- franciscojgo 8y ago
  This. What's more troubling is how they now put up a paywall for what is usually clickbaity, "want-to-get-this-viral" content.
  - huzaif 8y ago
    If you have ublock origin (or any other ad blocker I imagine) you can zap away their blocking pop-up.
startupnamefind 8y ago
Not entirely https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3071114/oracle-cloud-growth-driven-by-threats-to-customers-claims-shareholder-lawsuit https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3071114/oracle-cloud-gr...
- Majromax 8y ago
  That's interesting to read, since it provides an additional air of credibility to the reported fears. I wish that the Business Insider article had linked or at least mentioned it, but if they did then perhaps "customers are scared of Oracle" would not have seemed like breaking news.