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> every $BIG_CORP out there has on their roadmap a long-term plan to either drastically reduce their spend on Oracle products, or more often, eliminate it entir

by yardie 5y ago

> every $BIG_CORP out there has on their roadmap a long-term plan to either drastically reduce their spend on Oracle products, or more often, eliminate it entirely. You can believe this if you want. But $BIGCORP does not have the same license agreements that you and I see. There is a lot of momentum to stay on Oracle and companies have had decades to migrate away. Some have, most haven't and I think not much is going to change in the next decade. [] I'm literally telling a coworker we can't do what she wants to do with a Oracle DB server because the license doesn't allow it. Then I get an email from a VP that states we have a special license that does specifically allow it. I'm left wondering how many other companies have special licenses.

300bps 5y ago
I agree that every large corporation that uses Oracle software has a unique license with Oracle. And every one I’ve heard of considers Oracle a predatory vendor and they want to stop using them. They do things like charging you per CPU to run Java and even though you only run it on four CPUs you theoretically could run it on your entire VMWare cluster so they charge you for 10,000 CPUs. Which is ridiculous so they’ll give you a unique license for their software and they’ll bundle it all together so it isn’t a la carte anymore so even if you stop using 40% of their software you pay the same amount. Oracle’s business model seems to me to be to extract every nickel from their customers until they can figure out how to stop using their software. It’s why there are dozens of open source Java distributions now and it’s why things like MariaDB exist.
- usefulcat 5y ago
  > And every one I’ve heard of considers Oracle a predatory vendor and they want to stop using them. Ok, but talk is cheap. If you want to know what people actually want, ignore what they say and pay attention to what they do. Oracle's revenue and net income have been pretty steady for at least the past 5 years. Unless they've found some major new revenue stream, it certainly doesn't look like their customers are leaving in droves.
  - 300bps 5y ago
    It seems like you’re speaking generally and don’t know just how evil Oracle is as a vendor. Finding new revenue streams is exactly what Oracle has been doing. Take just one example - Java. Created in 1995 by SunOS, officially made open source in 2006. Purchased by Oracle in 2009. Demanded ludicrous runtime licensing fees in 2019. Want another example? MySQL. I know first hand of a handful of large cap companies completely shedding themselves of Oracle and have heard of many more that plan to.

by yardie 5y ago

300bps 5y ago

I agree that every large corporation that uses Oracle software has a unique license with Oracle. And every one I’ve heard of considers Oracle a predatory vendor and they want to stop using them. They do things like charging you per CPU to run Java and even though you only run it on four CPUs you theoretically could run it on your entire VMWare cluster so they charge you for 10,000 CPUs. Which is ridiculous so they’ll give you a unique license for their software and they’ll bundle it all together so it isn’t a la carte anymore so even if you stop using 40% of their software you pay the same amount. Oracle’s business model seems to me to be to extract every nickel from their customers until they can figure out how to stop using their software. It’s why there are dozens of open source Java distributions now and it’s why things like MariaDB exist.

usefulcat 5y ago
> And every one I’ve heard of considers Oracle a predatory vendor and they want to stop using them. Ok, but talk is cheap. If you want to know what people actually want, ignore what they say and pay attention to what they do. Oracle's revenue and net income have been pretty steady for at least the past 5 years. Unless they've found some major new revenue stream, it certainly doesn't look like their customers are leaving in droves.
- 300bps 5y ago
  It seems like you’re speaking generally and don’t know just how evil Oracle is as a vendor. Finding new revenue streams is exactly what Oracle has been doing. Take just one example - Java. Created in 1995 by SunOS, officially made open source in 2006. Purchased by Oracle in 2009. Demanded ludicrous runtime licensing fees in 2019. Want another example? MySQL. I know first hand of a handful of large cap companies completely shedding themselves of Oracle and have heard of many more that plan to.