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Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

reuters.com

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Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#41

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

simula67 wrote: post #32
shadowfiend wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

Both of you may be right. The company exists to make money for the shareholders. But to make money for shareholders it has to treat its customers well, it has to treat its employees well, it has to treat its partners well and it has to obey all the laws. Management who value these things are often referred to as having 'high levels of integrity'. Good shareholders should look for management exhibiting high levels of…

>But to make money for shareholders it has to treat its customers well, it has to treat its employees well, it has to treat its partners well and it has to obey all the laws.

Sadly not. One of the tragedies of capitalism is that it's much easier to run a profitable business by sharking everyone than by being a good citizen.

The optimal ethical position for profit is not the same as the optimal abstract ethical position.

This is why markets are a bad thing. If profit is your only measure of morality, you don't have a working mechanism to protect you - and everyone - from choices that produce short-term gains but long-term disasters.

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#42

Post by needusername »

jondubois wrote: post #33

It's horrible how large companies always try to frame whistle-blowers as 'disgruntled employees' and use the media to publicly shame them and make them unemployable. An 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 substanc…

> I can't think of a single Oracle product that the software engineers of today are actually excited about.

Java Mission Control. Yeah 'lock-in', 'expensive' and 'inflexible' all apply but it's quite amazing.

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#43

Post by tremon »

simula67 wrote: post #32
shadowfiend wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

Both of you may be right. The company exists to make money for the shareholders. But to make money for shareholders it has to treat its customers well, it has to treat its employees well, it has to treat its partners well and it has to obey all the laws. Management who value these things are often referred to as having 'high levels of integrity'. Good shareholders should look for management exhibiting high levels of…

The company exists to make money for the shareholders

Actually, that should be circumstantial. The primary reason for a business to exist is because it provides value to its customers. If the value provided (and monetized) is more than the business' operating costs, it gets to continue to exist.

Shareholders are an artifact of unnatural growth, not a fundamental property of business.

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#44

Post by toyg »

needusername wrote: post #42
jondubois wrote: post #33

It's horrible how large companies always try to frame whistle-blowers as 'disgruntled employees' and use the media to publicly shame them and make them unemployable. An 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 substanc…

> I can't think of a single Oracle product that the software engineers of today are actually excited about. Java Mission Control. Yeah 'lock-in', 'expensive' and 'inflexible' all apply but it's quite amazing.

Do you mean JRockit Mission Control? ;) a product Oracle bought, not developed...

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#45

Post by runarb »

vectran wrote: post #34
firebones wrote: post #18

Can 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…

As I understands it, some companies may also recognize the contract signing as the revenue and capitalize $13,000 for the year the contract was signed ($1000 setup and $1200 subscription pr year * 10 years).

If the customers cancel the contract they may then book the lost revenue as a loss, so an annual statement with high losses may be an indicator that they booked revenue before the revenue was truly secured.

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#46

Post by saiya-jin »

tremon wrote: post #43
simula67 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of you may be right. The company exists to make money for the shareholders. But to make money for shareholders it has to treat its customers well, it has to treat its employees well, it has to treat its partners well and it has to obey all the laws. Management who value these things are often referred to as having 'high levels of integrity'. Good shareholders should look for management exhibiting high levels of…

The company exists to make money for the shareholders Actually, that should be circumstantial. The primary reason for a business to exist is because it provides value to its customers. If the value provided (and monetized) is more than the business' operating costs, it gets to continue to exist. Shareholders are an artifact of unnatural growth, not a fundamental property of business.

those are some strong assumptions. people don't start companies to serve others, and if by any chance they won't lose money but actually earn something that would be nice.

maybe that's the world you would like to see, and maybe one day we will have it, but it's not the world we currently live in.

why is it so hard for some to accept that money is, overall, by far the strongest motivation force out there? Remove it, and >95% of population will not show up for their crappy work next day. it might not be the best motivator overall and has some drawbacks, but it works so far surprisingly well and we came to this situation by long evolution.

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#47

Post by a_imho »

jlarocco wrote: post #5
suprgeek wrote: post #2

Slightly 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…

I would wager in some way it is more honest to state you are doing professional business and here for the money, than creating mottos about disruption and doing good (or not doing evil) etc.

The surprising part is when customers of BigCo could be borderline labeled as fans - for me, at least.

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#48

Post by ajdlinux »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #37
jlarocco wrote: post #14

Earlier 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?

To many people "corporation" == "for-profit corporation", even though that's definitely not true with the standard legal definitions of "corporation".

Re: Oracle whistleblower suit raises questions over cloud accounting

#50

Post by Angostura »

saiya-jin wrote: post #46
tremon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company exists to make money for the shareholders Actually, that should be circumstantial. The primary reason for a business to exist is because it provides value to its customers. If the value provided (and monetized) is more than the business' operating costs, it gets to continue to exist. Shareholders are an artifact of unnatural growth, not a fundamental property of business.

those are some strong assumptions. people don't start companies to serve others, and if by any chance they won't lose money but actually earn something that would be nice. maybe that's the world you would like to see, and maybe one day we will have it, but it's not the world we currently live in. why is it so hard for some to accept that money is, overall, by far the strongest motivation force out there? Remove it, a…

> why is it so hard for some to accept that money is, overall, by far the strongest motivation force out there?

Because the evidence is circumstantial at best. Money, is of course important. But the strongest motivator? Not for many people.

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