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Is the fact that almost no startups talk about or use Oracle that much of a problem for Oracle? Those startups wouldn't have generated much revenue for Oracle a

Is the fact that almost no startups talk about or use Oracle that much of a problem for Oracle? Those startups wouldn't have generated much revenue for Oracle anyway. Those startups will forever be in search for a free solution.

Herbert2 14y ago
It could be, fast forward ten years and the majority of the smartest minds in the industry will have no experience with your flagship product.
ams6110 14y ago
Startups targeting enterprise or government customers might well use Oracle. It's free* to develop on, and something a lot of those sorts of clients use anyway. * Last I checked, Oracle allowed you to use Oracle RDBMS free for "prototype development" but once you were actually generating revenue from that you are supposed to buy the necessary licenses, even for continued development or support purposes.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  It's still the case - we had a free license from Oracle for the first 3-4 years of our company's life - We just had an account manager call us ever 6-9 months, see how we were doing. Eventually we got some real customers, revenues, and negotiated a several million dollar license purchase + 18%/year maintenance.
- praptak 14y ago
  > Oracle allowed you to use Oracle RDBMS free for "prototype development" but once you were actually generating revenue from that you are supposed to buy the necessary licenses, even for continued development or support purposes. Hm... I vaguely remember (but it was a really, really long time ago) you could use Oracle for as long as you wanted as long as you didn't process your own or your customers' business data.
LordIllidan 14y ago
What about when startups grow? Take Facebook as an example. Microsoft seems to be doing a good job targeting startups with Bizspark - not sure if Oracle has a similar program.
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  Microsoft seems to be making an effort with BizSpark, I don't know that I'd call it "a good job" in terms of actually getting startups to adopt MS stacks for the basis of their tech.
arkitaip 14y ago
An entire eco system - many which are at the forefront of big data - disinterested about Oracle's products is cause for concern, yes. And it's not just the startups but every person who reads about and tries to emulate them in the future, people who are now very unlikely to even look at Oracle's offerings let alone use them.
- coldtea 14y ago
  I don't think those people and corporations matter to Oracle. Oracle doesn't go after startups. Or even companies like Facebook or Dropbox etc. It goes after: government agencies, banks, insurance companies, multi-nationals, huge retail chains, logistics, payroll, and such. And it does a killing at it. Web style big-data are not Oracle's domain. And it's not like those startup people will afterwards (when they "grow up") go work in the enterprise and use Mongo and MariaDB there. It's just different kind of problem domains altogether.
elteto 14y ago
Only a few, but some of those startups will become the software giants of tomorrow and they will not use anything from the Oracle ecosystem. Something to be really worried about.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >Only a few, but some of those startups will become the software giants of tomorrow and they will not use anything from the Oracle ecosystem. Something to be really worried about. As per my comment above, Oracle doesn't care about those startups, whether they become the "software giants of tomorrow" or not. They sell to government agencies, logistics, payroll, multi-nationals, banks, finance, insurance companies, etc. Those sectors do not overlap with the startups using MariaDB, Mongo, or what have you. Totally different problem domains and people.

Herbert2 14y ago

It could be, fast forward ten years and the majority of the smartest minds in the industry will have no experience with your flagship product.

ams6110 14y ago

Startups targeting enterprise or government customers might well use Oracle. It's free* to develop on, and something a lot of those sorts of clients use anyway. * Last I checked, Oracle allowed you to use Oracle RDBMS free for "prototype development" but once you were actually generating revenue from that you are supposed to buy the necessary licenses, even for continued development or support purposes.

ghshephard 14y ago
It's still the case - we had a free license from Oracle for the first 3-4 years of our company's life - We just had an account manager call us ever 6-9 months, see how we were doing. Eventually we got some real customers, revenues, and negotiated a several million dollar license purchase + 18%/year maintenance.
praptak 14y ago
> Oracle allowed you to use Oracle RDBMS free for "prototype development" but once you were actually generating revenue from that you are supposed to buy the necessary licenses, even for continued development or support purposes. Hm... I vaguely remember (but it was a really, really long time ago) you could use Oracle for as long as you wanted as long as you didn't process your own or your customers' business data.

LordIllidan 14y ago

What about when startups grow? Take Facebook as an example. Microsoft seems to be doing a good job targeting startups with Bizspark - not sure if Oracle has a similar program.

cookiecaper 14y ago
Microsoft seems to be making an effort with BizSpark, I don't know that I'd call it "a good job" in terms of actually getting startups to adopt MS stacks for the basis of their tech.

arkitaip 14y ago

An entire eco system - many which are at the forefront of big data - disinterested about Oracle's products is cause for concern, yes. And it's not just the startups but every person who reads about and tries to emulate them in the future, people who are now very unlikely to even look at Oracle's offerings let alone use them.

coldtea 14y ago
I don't think those people and corporations matter to Oracle. Oracle doesn't go after startups. Or even companies like Facebook or Dropbox etc. It goes after: government agencies, banks, insurance companies, multi-nationals, huge retail chains, logistics, payroll, and such. And it does a killing at it. Web style big-data are not Oracle's domain. And it's not like those startup people will afterwards (when they "grow up") go work in the enterprise and use Mongo and MariaDB there. It's just different kind of problem domains altogether.

elteto 14y ago

Only a few, but some of those startups will become the software giants of tomorrow and they will not use anything from the Oracle ecosystem. Something to be really worried about.

coldtea 14y ago
>Only a few, but some of those startups will become the software giants of tomorrow and they will not use anything from the Oracle ecosystem. Something to be really worried about. As per my comment above, Oracle doesn't care about those startups, whether they become the "software giants of tomorrow" or not. They sell to government agencies, logistics, payroll, multi-nationals, banks, finance, insurance companies, etc. Those sectors do not overlap with the startups using MariaDB, Mongo, or what have you. Totally different problem domains and people.