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Yeah literally nothing about Oracle is useful or innovative. It’s like the WalMart of tech companies; just kind of exists and has rested on its laurels for a de

Yeah literally nothing about Oracle is useful or innovative. It’s like the WalMart of tech companies; just kind of exists and has rested on its laurels for a decade+.

djohnston 6y ago
Idk if that's fair to Walmart, they are definitely trying to compete with Amazon via new efforts.
- dannyincolor 6y ago
  You are correct; Walmart actually does have some nice innovation labs around the country doing some great work. Forgot about that and Walmart is an easy target for a lot of things :)
- dkobran 6y ago
  I don’t disagree that Walmart is making strides on the online shopping front but I also think they are only fighting for survival/relevance and would not produce anything new or interesting without this pressure. In contrast, companies like Amazon relentlessly develop new products and new technologies (see AWS). It’s not a response to external pressure — they don’t need to innovate to stay alive. They really embody the disruptive ambition / anything is possible mentality that fuels Silicon Valley. I sound like an Amazon fan boy but I’m the opposite haha just pointing out a difference in the DNA of these two companies.
  - dannyincolor 6y ago
    I didn’t know about Walmart’s innovation labs til recently. Might not be as innovative as I think, but it certainly changed the way I view them.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
    Walmart had the largest corporate database in the world at one point in time (about a decade and a half ago), and used it to build a brutally efficient supply chain. Innovation in process engineering and operations isn't really discussed much here, but it's almost assuredly had a much greater impact on keeping inflation at bay (helping the median American's salary stretch a little farther) than anything Amazon has ever done.
- atonse 6y ago
  Before Amazon took the crown of using technology for ruthless efficiency, Walmart was king. I remember reading articles 10-15 years ago about how the minute someone scanned an item at the cash register, Walmart's inventory systems, which knew what product was on what shelf and in what quantity, would automatically order refills from the supplier. They have always been highly innovative and tech savvy when it comes to the supply chain, at least for physical retail.
  - wing-_-nuts 6y ago
    >the minute someone scanned an item at the cash register, Walmart's inventory systems, which knew what product was on what shelf and in what quantity I wish this were the case, but anyone thats tried to do online grocery shopping at walmart knows that a lot of stuff shows out of stock, but is actually there in real life.
    - Supermancho 6y ago
      The online ordering is not tied into the realtime supplychain. The inventory mgmt that walmart developed is now ubiquitous among the largest retailers. Walmart is mow on or behind the innovation curve.
  - rriepe 6y ago
    Walmart Labs is a really solid workplace from everything I've heard about it.
amelius 6y ago
They did develop GraalVM, which is quite a technical achievement, or so I've heard (not a user).
- ginko 6y ago
  That got started under Sun, not Oracle.
  - AzzieElbab 6y ago
    And absolutely nothing good happened in 12 years, right?
- tanilama 6y ago
  Well, Oracle bought Sun, and the team behind it. I would be more in the mood to praise Oracle for this development, had they not shown how far they could go to hurt Java's community/ecosystem just to squeeze a penny out of it.
MH15 6y ago
Don't give Oracle too much credit, Walmart is far more innovative then Oracle.
jacob019 6y ago
Oracle has been a good steward of MySQL. I thought it was over when they acquired Sun, but the performance and features have really improved since then.
jcranmer 6y ago
Oracle is creating innovative new legal theories in Oracle v Google. Not that I'd consider that a positive thing.
SmokeyHamster 6y ago
Kind of a strange analogy. Walmart provides immense value to millions of people. They've developed an infrastructure that delivers cheap products to areas that otherwise would have few other options. Oracle is the antithesis of Walmart. They provide insanely expensive options to corporations who are already locked in to their products. One of the saddest days was when Oracle bought Sun and effectively killed all their open source projects overnight, like OpenOffice and MySQL. Yes, those things are still technically around, but they're not getting any serious development, and all the core developers of those projects have forked them into new open source projects.
- wavefunction 6y ago
  Walmart has contributed to the decline of small businesses in rural areas[0] and they compensate their employees so little that they officially encourage their employees to take advantage of the social safety net[1] despite ever increasing annual net income[2] captured largely by the non-productive latter-generation Waltons. [0]https://money.com/walmart-stores-closing-small-towns https://money.com/walmart-stores-closing-small-towns [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-... [2]https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-in...
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Not to go too off the rails, but they only “contributed to the decline” by being a better option for customers that switched from small businesses in rural areas to Walmart. A lot of small businesses are bad. Bad hours, bad selection of products, bad customer service, bad prices. They’re often held up in some idyllic form, but it’s clear from the behavior of their own customers that Walmart provides these customers more value.
    - wavefunction 6y ago
      And then they leave the area after a while leaving nothing for anyone. I posted the links for a reason and that's because they support my claims. People like to ignore the facts in favor of their feelings and emotions.
Taylor_OD 6y ago
I don't think Oracle is a innovation focused company but its a bit naive to think they are just resting on laurels. They bring in nearly 40 billion a year in revenue and this year tried to buy tiktok. It's not like people are twiddling their thumbs over there just because the software they make is typically used by enterprise companies in unsexy ways.
AzzieElbab 6y ago
Jdk?

Yeah literally nothing about Oracle is useful or innovative. It’s like the WalMart of tech companies; just kind of exists and has rested on its laurels for a decade+.

djohnston 6y ago

Idk if that's fair to Walmart, they are definitely trying to compete with Amazon via new efforts.

dannyincolor 6y ago
You are correct; Walmart actually does have some nice innovation labs around the country doing some great work. Forgot about that and Walmart is an easy target for a lot of things :)
dkobran 6y ago
I don’t disagree that Walmart is making strides on the online shopping front but I also think they are only fighting for survival/relevance and would not produce anything new or interesting without this pressure. In contrast, companies like Amazon relentlessly develop new products and new technologies (see AWS). It’s not a response to external pressure — they don’t need to innovate to stay alive. They really embody the disruptive ambition / anything is possible mentality that fuels Silicon Valley. I sound like an Amazon fan boy but I’m the opposite haha just pointing out a difference in the DNA of these two companies.
- dannyincolor 6y ago
  I didn’t know about Walmart’s innovation labs til recently. Might not be as innovative as I think, but it certainly changed the way I view them.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  Walmart had the largest corporate database in the world at one point in time (about a decade and a half ago), and used it to build a brutally efficient supply chain. Innovation in process engineering and operations isn't really discussed much here, but it's almost assuredly had a much greater impact on keeping inflation at bay (helping the median American's salary stretch a little farther) than anything Amazon has ever done.
atonse 6y ago
Before Amazon took the crown of using technology for ruthless efficiency, Walmart was king. I remember reading articles 10-15 years ago about how the minute someone scanned an item at the cash register, Walmart's inventory systems, which knew what product was on what shelf and in what quantity, would automatically order refills from the supplier. They have always been highly innovative and tech savvy when it comes to the supply chain, at least for physical retail.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  >the minute someone scanned an item at the cash register, Walmart's inventory systems, which knew what product was on what shelf and in what quantity I wish this were the case, but anyone thats tried to do online grocery shopping at walmart knows that a lot of stuff shows out of stock, but is actually there in real life.
  - Supermancho 6y ago
    The online ordering is not tied into the realtime supplychain. The inventory mgmt that walmart developed is now ubiquitous among the largest retailers. Walmart is mow on or behind the innovation curve.
- rriepe 6y ago
  Walmart Labs is a really solid workplace from everything I've heard about it.

amelius 6y ago

They did develop GraalVM, which is quite a technical achievement, or so I've heard (not a user).

ginko 6y ago
That got started under Sun, not Oracle.
- AzzieElbab 6y ago
  And absolutely nothing good happened in 12 years, right?
tanilama 6y ago
Well, Oracle bought Sun, and the team behind it. I would be more in the mood to praise Oracle for this development, had they not shown how far they could go to hurt Java's community/ecosystem just to squeeze a penny out of it.

MH15 6y ago

Don't give Oracle too much credit, Walmart is far more innovative then Oracle.

jacob019 6y ago

Oracle has been a good steward of MySQL. I thought it was over when they acquired Sun, but the performance and features have really improved since then.

jcranmer 6y ago

Oracle is creating innovative new legal theories in Oracle v Google. Not that I'd consider that a positive thing.

SmokeyHamster 6y ago

Kind of a strange analogy. Walmart provides immense value to millions of people. They've developed an infrastructure that delivers cheap products to areas that otherwise would have few other options. Oracle is the antithesis of Walmart. They provide insanely expensive options to corporations who are already locked in to their products. One of the saddest days was when Oracle bought Sun and effectively killed all their open source projects overnight, like OpenOffice and MySQL. Yes, those things are still technically around, but they're not getting any serious development, and all the core developers of those projects have forked them into new open source projects.

wavefunction 6y ago
Walmart has contributed to the decline of small businesses in rural areas[0] and they compensate their employees so little that they officially encourage their employees to take advantage of the social safety net[1] despite ever increasing annual net income[2] captured largely by the non-productive latter-generation Waltons. [0]https://money.com/walmart-stores-closing-small-towns https://money.com/walmart-stores-closing-small-towns [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-... [2]https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-in...
- fossuser 6y ago
  Not to go too off the rails, but they only “contributed to the decline” by being a better option for customers that switched from small businesses in rural areas to Walmart. A lot of small businesses are bad. Bad hours, bad selection of products, bad customer service, bad prices. They’re often held up in some idyllic form, but it’s clear from the behavior of their own customers that Walmart provides these customers more value.
  - wavefunction 6y ago
    And then they leave the area after a while leaving nothing for anyone. I posted the links for a reason and that's because they support my claims. People like to ignore the facts in favor of their feelings and emotions.

Taylor_OD 6y ago

I don't think Oracle is a innovation focused company but its a bit naive to think they are just resting on laurels. They bring in nearly 40 billion a year in revenue and this year tried to buy tiktok. It's not like people are twiddling their thumbs over there just because the software they make is typically used by enterprise companies in unsexy ways.

AzzieElbab 6y ago

Jdk?