Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, what was the outcome of Oracle vs Google?
Oracle made many arguments -- patent and copyright infringement. The patent claims were rejected, but after an appeal, the appeals court ruled that language-level APIs (i.e, not REST APIs or other protocols) are copyrightable, at which point (another) court debated the question of fair use by Google, and ruled in Google's favor (i.e, that their use of Java's API does not constitute an infringement of the API's copyri…
Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
31–40 of 66 posts
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand Oracle hate. Yep, they're all about making money, but at the end of the day, that's what most businesses are doing, and the ones who say otherwise are bullshitting you with crap their marketing department made up. Only in start-up bizarro world can a company give away free products and have negative or zero profit margin and be considered "succeeding". It makes no sense to me to hear people working…
The problem here isn't asserting that businesses and corporations exist to make money. It's asserting that they only exist to make money. Or that that is in any way natural. For a company to focus entirely on making money when they don't have enough money to operate is, let's say, understandable. But since companies are run by humans, and humans are quite adept at balancing different goals at the same time, it's not…
Good shareholders should look for management exhibiting high levels of integrity. Like Warren Buffet said :
"In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy."
At least in the public's eye, Oracle has lost the perception of having any integrity.
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#33An employee who was fired (for whatever reason) is always going to be much more likely to blow the whistle than a happy employee who is still receiving pay cheques from their employer.
Just because someone was fired doesn't mean that there is no substance behind their claims. Also, 'poor performance' is highly subjective... Maybe Oracle was looking a very specific kind of 'performance' which was outside of the legal/ethical boundaries of that employee.
Regarding the Oracle cloud sales not doing well, this isn't surprising. I am more surprised by the fact that Oracle shares are still performing well on the stock market. I can't think of a single Oracle product that the software engineers of today are actually excited about. The terms that come to mind when I think about Oracle are 'legacy', 'lock-in', 'expensive' and 'inflexible'.
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#34Can anyone with a finance/CFO background give a primer in how a) to detect such aggressive accounting in a cloud company's earnings statements and/or b) what aggressive means in this context? It would be nice to have a field guide to how to spot those without bathing suits when the tide goes out.
b) Aggressive in this context likely means that revenue (and earnings) were being improperly accounted for in the current period. My guess in this context relates to revenue recognition. For instance if I sell SAAS product for $1000 setup and $100 per month and I expect the customer to stay on average 10 years - how do I recognise this revenue?
The aggressive accounting would recognise revenue of $1000 (setup) and $1200 (subscription) in the first year. But it may be fairer (and potentially more appropriate) to recognise $100 (10% of the setup costs as customer expected to stay 10 years - apportion over this period) and $1200 (subscription) in the first year.
On this simple alteration in treatment revenue could differ from $2200 to $1300. NB: This is an oversimplification and the actual recognition criteria depends on scenario, nature and company policies.
Cloud accounting (read: SAAS) is still relatively new and very different to traditional licensing and the accounting/finance community is still grappling with the recognition and treatment.
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oracle made many arguments -- patent and copyright infringement. The patent claims were rejected, but after an appeal, the appeals court ruled that language-level APIs (i.e, not REST APIs or other protocols) are copyrightable, at which point (another) court debated the question of fair use by Google, and ruled in Google's favor (i.e, that their use of Java's API does not constitute an infringement of the API's copyri…
OpenJDK was released by Sun, not by Oracle.
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#36Slightly relevant - about Oracle and its single-minded pursuit of money over all else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m
I don't understand Oracle hate. Yep, they're all about making money, but at the end of the day, that's what most businesses are doing, and the ones who say otherwise are bullshitting you with crap their marketing department made up. Only in start-up bizarro world can a company give away free products and have negative or zero profit margin and be considered "succeeding". It makes no sense to me to hear people working…
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem here isn't asserting that businesses and corporations exist to make money. It's asserting that they only exist to make money. Or that that is in any way natural. For a company to focus entirely on making money when they don't have enough money to operate is, let's say, understandable. But since companies are run by humans, and humans are quite adept at balancing different goals at the same time, it's not…
> It's asserting that they only exist to make money. Or that that is in any way natural. There are plenty of companies that exist to make money and have additional goals. But, gigantic, publicly traded corporations don't fall into that category, and they exist exclusively to make money. If they tell you otherwise, their PR people are trying to fool you. I'm also tempted to say a business whose number one goal isn't m…
Um, what does "corporation" mean to you? Can you identify anything that you would call a "non-profit" that is not also a corporation?
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#38Can anyone with a finance/CFO background give a primer in how a) to detect such aggressive accounting in a cloud company's earnings statements and/or b) what aggressive means in this context? It would be nice to have a field guide to how to spot those without bathing suits when the tide goes out.
a) All IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) compliant financial statements will have a accounting policies statement preceding the 'Notes to the accounts'. This accounting policy section will outline how revenue is recognised and how this is recorded in the financial statements. There is a trend for financial market regulatories to require auditors to provide a summary of 'key audit matters' in their op…
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's asserting that they only exist to make money. Or that that is in any way natural. There are plenty of companies that exist to make money and have additional goals. But, gigantic, publicly traded corporations don't fall into that category, and they exist exclusively to make money. If they tell you otherwise, their PR people are trying to fool you. I'm also tempted to say a business whose number one goal isn't m…
> I'm also tempted to say a business whose number one goal isn't making money for its owner and employees should probably be registered as a non-profit or a charity or something else, and not a corporation, but I guess there's no reason they couldn't be a corporation. Um, what does "corporation" mean to you? Can you identify anything that you would call a "non-profit" that is not also a corporation?
Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oracle may be "evil" in many people's eyes but at the end of the day they just want to sell some products and services. Same with Microsoft, same with Apple. Compare and contrast that with Google and Facebook who make their money off your private data .
Both Oracle and Microsoft use some pretty creative means to inflate their income. See also 'free audits' by the BSA, which are nothing less than the setup for a shakedown. I've seen quite a few companies that waved the need for such an audit only to be presented with a bailiff and some guys in suits claiming to have received 'information' about illegal software being used on the premises. This can get ugly - and expe…