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Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

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Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#71

Post by tsotha »

anaolykarpov wrote: post #58

I see this phrase repeated over and over: nobody got fired for chosing Oracle, ibm, or Microsoft. I wonder: did anyone got fired for chosing Postgres, Linux, or even new and risky stuff like Mongodb or nodejs? And being told at their exit interview "you should've decided to use Oracle"? I guess tech people are fired for lack of talent in hustling company politics much often than they are for chosing a technology.

It's not so much that someone will say "you should've used Oracle". It's that when your application is down for two days they'll say "you should've picked a vendor with 24 hour support and good penetration in the job market".

Now, your Oracle-hosted application might go down for two days as well, but then people would shrug and say "sometimes this happens."

To be fair to Oracle, though, it does seem to happen less often.

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#73

Post by ldayley »

bhahn wrote: post #55

“It only costs us 6 percent of revenue, and that’s nothing,” Nelson said. This seems high. Is this normal for big companies?

Wait, doesn't Ellison and/or Oracle own a huge chunk of Netsuite? Nelson is basically doing PR work for them in this quote.

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#74

Post by suyash »

ldayley wrote: post #73
bhahn wrote: post #55

“It only costs us 6 percent of revenue, and that’s nothing,” Nelson said. This seems high. Is this normal for big companies?

Wait, doesn't Ellison and/or Oracle own a huge chunk of Netsuite? Nelson is basically doing PR work for them in this quote.

Doesn't matter, there are several other tech companies that pay big bucks to Oracle for it's products and services - they are not fools.

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#75

Post by [deleted] »

stephen-mw wrote: post #43
erichmond wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon does not provide SLA agreements at all. I don't think people are necc. disagreeing with your vision of how things should be, but the fact is, enterprise software just doesn't work the way you're describing.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/sla/

[deleted]

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#76

Post by tonyedgecombe »

suyash wrote: post #74
ldayley wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, doesn't Ellison and/or Oracle own a huge chunk of Netsuite? Nelson is basically doing PR work for them in this quote.

Doesn't matter, there are several other tech companies that pay big bucks to Oracle for it's products and services - they are not fools.

I think it does, just as the fact you work for Oracle should make us question the neutrality of your statement.

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#77

Post by rodgerd »

logicchains wrote: post #68
rodgerd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) Lawsuits. With the right incentives to lawyers and politicians, Oracle might be able to get Lotus v. Borland effectively reversed; then they could start licensing the use of SQL itself! That's what they're very close to achieving with Oracle v Google. However, I don't think Oracle would be the winner in the "Who owns SQL?" conversation.

If that happened and IBM said to Oracle "We want 30% of your database revenue if you wish to keep using our SQL API", would there be anything Oracle could do?

Point out IBM's non-mainframe business depends almost entirely on Java.

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#78

Post by Yeroc »

DrStalker wrote: post #21
rbanffy wrote: post #3

Is it surprising startups no longer buy as many Oracle licenses as they did in the 90's?

It's hard to think of a situation where a new startup would use Oracle; it's a massive cost compared to alternatives and while it does offer some advantages over other DB choices those advantages are not very compelling for most uses. For example, we did some rough testing recently and found that Oracle was faster for report generation than MSSQL but we can double the processing power assigned to the MSQQL to get equ…

If you're a startup selling services to large enterprises you may be forced to use Oracle because it gives your customers more confidence in your solution (assuming you're offering a service where you storing information on important assets on behalf of the enterprise).

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#79

Post by datashovel »

donw wrote: post #11
CyberDildonics wrote: post #4

I don't even know how Oracle is still the juggernaut that they are. A $10,000 dollar computer running postgres can serve a ridiculous amount of queries. I suspect the general idea is to spend huge amount of money to run incredibly inefficient SQL queries.

A number of reasons that form an important lesson in sales at the enterprise level: 1. Oracle does provide value. They have clustering and high-availability offerings that Postgres just can't touch, and those come with service and support personnel as part of the contract. A one-stop solution is a powerful sales pitch. 2. They have a massive existing install base within the Fortune 500, which spend amounts of money t…

Historically speaking I would agree. Oracle, at one point in history, did offer a compelling value proposition.

I attribute their slow but inevitable death to a slow learning curve in Fortune 500 companies.

Also I imagine they're likely involved in a large number of government contracts.

Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software

#80

Post by dredmorbius »

jccooper wrote: post #50
CleanCut wrote: post #37

This is the headline I expected to see 10 years ago.

Judging by the graph there was a serious inflection point in 2008. Which seems about right from what I remember. So it probably should have been a headline long before now.

The 2008 inflection would have come from the financial crisis. Lots of large firms got hit by that, and a few went under. Since the plot is of _new_ licenses, it suggests that companies weighing the benefits of Oracle vs. one of the alternatives (Postgresql, NoSQL), went with cheaper.
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