Wonder why Microsofts server business seems to still be going strong then.
Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
101–110 of 143 posts
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#102Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#103I 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.
Simple -- the crowd who picks and buys Oracle doesn't hang out on HN. So if you are on HN then you think everyone runs Docker, Kubernetes, RethinkDB, Go, and something...something Reactive.
Exactly. There is a huge world of professional IT that HN is almost blind to. Though I'd wager that there is someone on HN from just about every niche in IT.
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#104Earlier 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.
Don't underestimate the gap between what is foolish for a company and what is foolish for an individual employee at an enterprise IT department.
I think that IT staff of large enterprises are not foolish when they cling on to overpriced Oracle installations as that creates job security and high wages for them even if they are mediocre (not all of them are mediocre of course)
Also, it may not be foolish for a large enterprise that runs on Oracle to keep doing so, because any benefits from switching could be dwarfed by the cost and risk of switching.
But I think there are a lot of medium sized companies outside the tech sector for whom a decision to go with Oracle is foolish and not switching is foolish too. They're not just overpaying for Oracle licenses but also for DBAs, and they are creating a stagnant IT culture that is less likely to come up with innovative solutions for new business problems.
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
6 years of AT&T under my belt, Enterprise operates differently. They don't care about what postgres or EC2 or whatever can do, it's all about not doing anything that someone can point a finger at you for later. Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM, Oracle or Microsoft. Also, companies that supply software to corps also supply something that's probably more valuable than the software itself. Support & Maintenance ag…
Nothing about EC2 precludes it from offloading accountability from its clients to itself. Amazon operates infrastructure for the CIA. Consultants are plentiful and cheap. Amazon can provide handholding-as-a-Service just as well as Oracle. At some point, Amazon may invest more resources into its service business. But now it makes sense to grow its platform. That is the difference in Amazon vs Oracle model. Amazon is p…
nice writing and all, but sir you have no first hand clue about corporations. not everybody is using new cool toys of the day as backbone of their whole company. For example i work at the bank, the whole core banking package is basically app build in pl/sql on top of oracle db.
i like cool new technologies, but to even think they would run in next 20 years anything else than their super-cluster is funny and ridiculous, and... stupid.
Some non-critical apps like HR, timesheets and whatnot? Sure, have it in SAP (why isn't anybody discussing this super massive pile of crap? compared to that, oracle's offerings are slick cool lean easy-to-use tiny gadgets). Or some MS/IBM solutions.
Let's not forget quality support cost a fortune, and that quality part is more important than some numbers on budgeting spreadsheet. Bear in mind, these static part of IT budget are carved in stone, nobody is questioning them.
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Oracle does provide value. I don't know why people always mention clustering. It provides so many downsides and complications that it hardly ever seems worth it. I don't know my people never mention instrumentation, monitoring and plan management. These things are there you help you when you need them.
is it more complicated? yes. is it completely mandatory for many types of bigger corps? but of course.
not that the topics you mention are not important part of equation :)
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#107I 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…
Somebody that I know very recently worked on an enterprise project to create more-or-less a web page that had a $1,000,000 budget.
This is uncomfortably close to the truth, and the reason why government procurement projects often overrun so badly with so much spent is that the budget is set high in the first place. This creates an opportunity to pile on consultants and complexity which can all be billed for.
The size of the budget determines the size of the solution, not the other way round.
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple -- the crowd who picks and buys Oracle doesn't hang out on HN. So if you are on HN then you think everyone runs Docker, Kubernetes, RethinkDB, Go, and something...something Reactive.
Picks and buys, perhaps, but some of us who have to use the stuff are here :-)
indeed, we are! now back to work...
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#109I 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.
For starters, consider that Oracle does not just sell the Oracle RDBS but a huge range of other enterprise software.
Re: Oracle Sales Erode as Startups Embrace Free Software
#110Oracle never really cared about the developer experience. Eventually that wears out whatever market lead a company might have.
Oracle can be very fast and well setup but the tools to work with are not good and the general optimization now is not as needed with cheaper hardware and more horizontal systems.
There are so many other options out there now. PostgreSQL is great to work with and is so good now that it just might be the leader. Oracle was late to embrace usage on cloud instances and licensing models in that environment don't do as well, that is why Microsoft created Azure and it is their new platform essentially.