4 ms·

One wonders how long it will take for Oracle to become largely irrelevant.

by chris_wot 5y ago

twiddling 5y ago
like IBM irrelevant? still generating revenue but not seen as influential within tech.
mastrsushi 5y ago
It’s at least noticeable, what do they even make anymore that’s valuable? DB software, Java?
- stephankoelle 5y ago
  GraalVM
- brianwawok 5y ago
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/269728/oracles-revenue-by-business-segment-since-2008/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/269728/oracles-revenue-b... Cloud services and license support is the top bucket, unclear what all the entails. They own a LOT of business oriented very pricey software (Netsuite etc)...
- not1ofU 5y ago
  virtualbox
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  They are a strong name in Enterprise Resource Planning software, both internally developed and acquired. Besides licenses, they do a lot of ERP hosting, likely recognized as "Cloud" revenue. (Disclaimer/Source - I've been a PeopleSoft admin/architect/ops working for IBM for 20 years; PeopleSoft was bought by Oracle in 2005; all opinions my own etc:) They made other plays - there is Oracle Linux as rebrand of RHEL; a few rebranded/purchased virtualization as well as hardware products; etc etc
- deelowe 5y ago
  They are pivoting their enterprise db and server (sun) business into a cloud services business. Oracle solutions require a ton of infrastructure to run properly at scale and they are using that to pitch their own cloud. I wonder how long it'll be before they start building moats to defend against "bare metal" solutions from other providers.
snek_case 5y ago
You would think, but the stock price is still going up and they have a lot of cash on hand. I don't really understand why anyone does business with them, but they are likely to be around for a long time. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ORCL?p=ORCL https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ORCL?p=ORCL
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  They are probably going to last really long considering the impact they made before FAANG took off. Many of their customers are governments and quasi-government companies (think bank and telecom) so I actually think they are going to last a lot longer than we want.
  - ThePadawan 5y ago
    I wonder at what point anyone will be willing to work for them and at what salary, though. Surely there comes a point where even paying triple the standard rate, you can't get more engineers working on dusty old code while remaining profitable and their customers' best offer.
    - markus_zhang 5y ago
      Golden time for retired contractors. The same you see for the COBOL generation.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  >>why anyone does business with them, but they are likely to be around for a long time The answer is partially in the question. For large enterprises where large part of IT is a strict cost centre - the "boring" areas of HR/Pay, Financials, CRM, ERM, SCM, etc - predictability, support, longevity, reliability are far more important than sexiness, new technologies, or even immediate cost of license compared to cost of change and uncertainty.
  - basch 5y ago
evilduck 5y ago
Oracle is relevant outside of a courthouse?
lambersley 5y ago
Oracle has made substantial push into the hyperscale cloud space in the last 2 years. Even though they lag quite a bit behind AWS/Azure/GCP, they are far from irrelevant. (Revenue grew approximately 26% year over year in 2019) While Oracle DB is still dominant (At the end of 2019, Oracle was the leader in DBMS revenue ($15.15 billion) and market share (27.5%)) in large enterprises, Oracle will retain a place in the industry. (430,000 customers in 175 countries and revenue of $39 billion for fiscal year 2020)
- hectormalot 5y ago
  Not contesting the facts, but important to read them in context. Market share by revenue is likely biased towards Oracle vs market share by usage/installs. I’m under the impression that those migrating towards other DBMS’s are partly doing so to get away from the high pricing of Oracle. So even if usage of eg RDS Aurora and Oracle are the same, it would show Oracle as doing really well. If I’m correct, and the underlying user base for Oracle is declining, then their numbers can only go down in the long term. But, they have a great money printing machine today, loads of enterprise sales expertise, and the buffers (read: time) to deal with this change. So, although I don’t think they’ll become irrelevant, I wouldn’t say they’re doing particularly well either (from a trends and market direction perspective)
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  Larry Ellison started the Oracle ball rolling by selling an up-and-coming database technology, based on relationships, which was an R&D study at Stanford? (IIRC) to the FBI. I presume that Oracle powers all the "signals" gathering at the NSA/CIA/FBI. That alone would be enough to keep Oracle in business forever.
  - hobs 5y ago
    There were no Oracle databases in the Snowden revelations, all MySQL iirc.
    - Denvercoder9 5y ago
systems 5y ago
well, they need to move to the cloud fast but they are already kind of there, they own NetSuite which is the number 1 cloud ERP they also own Oracle ERP which is another top 5 cloud ERP they own peoplesoft/jd edwards and all their clients they next to SAP, own the enterprise apps market and unlike SAP, they seem to be serious about competing with AWS ans Azure, Oracle OCI, see to get niece reviews So how long will it take for Oracle to be irrelevant, if OCI and NetSuite continue to move in the right directions, for as long as people have money
- sjg007 5y ago
  They have a cloud offering
- hestefisk 5y ago
  Seems the Oracle PR department found HN :)
beached_whale 5y ago
Enterprise market is a nice place to be and they are firmly entrenched
tyingq 5y ago
They've certainly started getting flat in revenue: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ORCL/oracle/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ORCL/oracle/revenu... My guess is they will hang on for a long time as the reigning king of on-prem. They aren't hurting yet, because the companies that are losing ground in on-prem are losing it both to AWS/Azure, but also losing the on-prem ground to Oracle. Eventually, the continued downward spiral of on-prem will hit them. But on-prem really never goes away. Oracle will just become the king of a much smaller hill.
jollybean 5y ago
As long as RDBMS and Java are around they will be. And the information revolution is just beginning for most of the 4 billion citizens on the planet.

One wonders how long it will take for Oracle to become largely irrelevant.

twiddling 5y ago

like IBM irrelevant? still generating revenue but not seen as influential within tech.

mastrsushi 5y ago

It’s at least noticeable, what do they even make anymore that’s valuable? DB software, Java?

stephankoelle 5y ago
GraalVM
brianwawok 5y ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269728/oracles-revenue-by-business-segment-since-2008/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/269728/oracles-revenue-b... Cloud services and license support is the top bucket, unclear what all the entails. They own a LOT of business oriented very pricey software (Netsuite etc)...
not1ofU 5y ago
virtualbox
NikolaNovak 5y ago
They are a strong name in Enterprise Resource Planning software, both internally developed and acquired. Besides licenses, they do a lot of ERP hosting, likely recognized as "Cloud" revenue. (Disclaimer/Source - I've been a PeopleSoft admin/architect/ops working for IBM for 20 years; PeopleSoft was bought by Oracle in 2005; all opinions my own etc:) They made other plays - there is Oracle Linux as rebrand of RHEL; a few rebranded/purchased virtualization as well as hardware products; etc etc
deelowe 5y ago
They are pivoting their enterprise db and server (sun) business into a cloud services business. Oracle solutions require a ton of infrastructure to run properly at scale and they are using that to pitch their own cloud. I wonder how long it'll be before they start building moats to defend against "bare metal" solutions from other providers.

snek_case 5y ago

You would think, but the stock price is still going up and they have a lot of cash on hand. I don't really understand why anyone does business with them, but they are likely to be around for a long time. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ORCL?p=ORCL https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ORCL?p=ORCL

markus_zhang 5y ago
They are probably going to last really long considering the impact they made before FAANG took off. Many of their customers are governments and quasi-government companies (think bank and telecom) so I actually think they are going to last a lot longer than we want.
- ThePadawan 5y ago
  I wonder at what point anyone will be willing to work for them and at what salary, though. Surely there comes a point where even paying triple the standard rate, you can't get more engineers working on dusty old code while remaining profitable and their customers' best offer.
  - markus_zhang 5y ago
    Golden time for retired contractors. The same you see for the COBOL generation.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
>>why anyone does business with them, but they are likely to be around for a long time The answer is partially in the question. For large enterprises where large part of IT is a strict cost centre - the "boring" areas of HR/Pay, Financials, CRM, ERM, SCM, etc - predictability, support, longevity, reliability are far more important than sexiness, new technologies, or even immediate cost of license compared to cost of change and uncertainty.
- basch 5y ago

evilduck 5y ago

Oracle is relevant outside of a courthouse?

lambersley 5y ago

Oracle has made substantial push into the hyperscale cloud space in the last 2 years. Even though they lag quite a bit behind AWS/Azure/GCP, they are far from irrelevant. (Revenue grew approximately 26% year over year in 2019) While Oracle DB is still dominant (At the end of 2019, Oracle was the leader in DBMS revenue ($15.15 billion) and market share (27.5%)) in large enterprises, Oracle will retain a place in the industry. (430,000 customers in 175 countries and revenue of $39 billion for fiscal year 2020)

hectormalot 5y ago
Not contesting the facts, but important to read them in context. Market share by revenue is likely biased towards Oracle vs market share by usage/installs. I’m under the impression that those migrating towards other DBMS’s are partly doing so to get away from the high pricing of Oracle. So even if usage of eg RDS Aurora and Oracle are the same, it would show Oracle as doing really well. If I’m correct, and the underlying user base for Oracle is declining, then their numbers can only go down in the long term. But, they have a great money printing machine today, loads of enterprise sales expertise, and the buffers (read: time) to deal with this change. So, although I don’t think they’ll become irrelevant, I wouldn’t say they’re doing particularly well either (from a trends and market direction perspective)
TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
Larry Ellison started the Oracle ball rolling by selling an up-and-coming database technology, based on relationships, which was an R&D study at Stanford? (IIRC) to the FBI. I presume that Oracle powers all the "signals" gathering at the NSA/CIA/FBI. That alone would be enough to keep Oracle in business forever.
- hobs 5y ago
  There were no Oracle databases in the Snowden revelations, all MySQL iirc.
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago

systems 5y ago

well, they need to move to the cloud fast but they are already kind of there, they own NetSuite which is the number 1 cloud ERP they also own Oracle ERP which is another top 5 cloud ERP they own peoplesoft/jd edwards and all their clients they next to SAP, own the enterprise apps market and unlike SAP, they seem to be serious about competing with AWS ans Azure, Oracle OCI, see to get niece reviews So how long will it take for Oracle to be irrelevant, if OCI and NetSuite continue to move in the right directions, for as long as people have money

sjg007 5y ago
They have a cloud offering
hestefisk 5y ago
Seems the Oracle PR department found HN :)

beached_whale 5y ago

Enterprise market is a nice place to be and they are firmly entrenched

tyingq 5y ago

They've certainly started getting flat in revenue: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ORCL/oracle/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ORCL/oracle/revenu... My guess is they will hang on for a long time as the reigning king of on-prem. They aren't hurting yet, because the companies that are losing ground in on-prem are losing it both to AWS/Azure, but also losing the on-prem ground to Oracle. Eventually, the continued downward spiral of on-prem will hit them. But on-prem really never goes away. Oracle will just become the king of a much smaller hill.

jollybean 5y ago

As long as RDBMS and Java are around they will be. And the information revolution is just beginning for most of the 4 billion citizens on the planet.