4 ms·
> They could reverse 90% of their brand damage Their stock is 50% higher than it was a year ago. Not quite sure this is doing them damage.
by muglug 1y ago
> They could reverse 90% of their brand damage
Their stock is 50% higher than it was a year ago.
Not quite sure this is doing them damage.
- Lerc 1y agoMaking a concession when they have not been forced to might indicate weakness to some. In that sense showing a speck of humanity might actually harm their stock.
- Nevermark 1y agoMy guess, is that the people who could break protocol are too busy to deal with a request to break protocol. Too busy to give it a thought. And anyone who is sympathetic to the request, knows that campaigning for the protocol break would require disrupting two or three levels of management above them, forcing powerful people to deal with something they don't care about. And that would be interpreted as wasting important people's time. So the organization, as a decision making entity, is incapable of recognizing, much less considering, requests for an exception to default behavior. I worked with a business that operated this way for many years. Even when there were overwhelming reasons to break process, the spark and tinder never got anywhere near each other. Everyone between the spark and tinder empathized, talked to "somebody" to demonstrate they "tried", and to create an alibi for the inevitable "no" response that came next, while quietly doing everything they could to smother that spark, before it burned them.
- chrisweekly 1y agoThank for describing so eloquently this phenomenon, which IMHO is the root cause of the dysfunction endemic to big companies.
- make3 1y agoSatya's attempt to rehumanize Microsoft by making efforts to help open source projects really helped Microsoft's image
- ocdtrekkie 1y agoYeah, but Microsoft also did a two steps forward and three steps back there. Things like shoving product ads onto the lock screen and preinstalling Candy Crush Soda Saga cost them more goodwill than any developer-facing effort earned them.
- xenator 1y agoThis one especially hurt only people who are inside Windows ecosystem. For people like me Microsoft is nice author of one product. I'm talking about VS Code.
- bayindirh 1y agoMicrosoft’s “core DNA” is still there firmly, though. They successfully weaponized open source by giving something for free and clawing back step by step (i.e. closing open source VSCode plugins), and leaving parts which does drowns competitors most effectively open. Also they act like their open source code is “Free”. They firmly control it, yet act like they don’t. Microsoft’s image didn’t improve a bit in my eyes.
- Expurple 1y ago> Also they act like their open source code is “Free”. They firmly control it, yet act like they don’t. They are responsive to the community and merge community PRs. That's already more "open" than, say, SQLite. Sure, they don't give away merge rights and keep exclusive control over the upstream copy. But how many "open" projects have a second maintainer at all? I mean, more than one person (the original author) with merge access. The code is free. You can always fork it and use it however you like. That's always been the deal you get with open source. Sure, it's nice when the upstream maintainers always do only the things you like, and you never need to fork. But that's a separate quality, unrelated to the code itself being "free" or "open".
- Aeolun 1y agoI’m fairly certain the people buying Oracle stock ar elopking for exactly the kind of company it actually is.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago> Their stock is 50% higher than it was a year ago. Tesla stock is 63% higher than it was a year ago, does this prove that each and every decision their leadership made was helpful to the bottom line?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- danparsonson 1y agoIt demonstrates that things that should matter, don't always.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- moritzwarhier 1y agoSince Oracle is not in B2C, there is no brand damage in openly being a net-negative rent-seeker. Rent-seeking is what shareholders crave. It makes line go up, it has electrolytes.
- thayne 1y agoIt only makes the line go up in the short term. In the long term companies will avoid Oracle, and sales will go down. But shareholders don't care about the longterm.
- moritzwarhier 1y agoMaybe they'll invest some of the rent into monopoly strategies and micro-improvements that keep Oracle attractive for high-stakes customers. I hope I'm wrong though.
- adventured 1y agoOracle has demonstrated the long-term and their stock has never been higher. Their sales are finally heading higher again.. They're one of the oldest software companies and are approaching 50 years old. What is more long-term in their industry than what they have accomplished? They're better positioned now than they have been at any other point in the past 10-15 years.
- moritzwarhier 1y agoTo be fair, maybe they do make good enterprise database software. There's got to be something to their success apart from lock-in.
- tux3 1y agoJust make sure you don't benchmark it. Comparing to the competition is a serious breach of contract. Oracle is not an abusive relationship, it's just that you shouldn't be looking elsewhere, and infractions will be punished. They are very serious about audits.