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Oracle slashes 30k jobs

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Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#471

Post by cool_dude85 »

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

I think the big use case for Oracle products are for businesses that are not in the IT space. A lot of reasons for this, a big one is the breadth of Oracle's products is very solid and, similar to Microsoft, you can be sold on Oracle solving all your database needs across your business: HR, asset management, customer relationship stuff, your actual business, all with a single vendor. Non-IT management will be told that it all integrates seamlessly, you don't need to hire IT staff dealing with software from 10 different vendors, just the one.

For instance, I work in the utility industry. They offer specialized utility-specific software for managing data from our meters, our customer and billing system, asset management, HR, accounting, reporting from all these systems. Even more specialized stuff exists that we don'tbuy. No doubt if you had a different use case, Oracle would sell us on their ability to handle it. I think this is the model they follow. They are not trying to sell to startups, tech platforms, software companies, etc. They are trying to sell to your bank.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#472

Post by charcircuit »

mwcampbell wrote: post #392
Verdex wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever the lawnmower thing comes up, I try to also mention dtrace. As far as things to be remembered for, they make some strange bedfellows... although it's better than anything I've managed so I guess congrats.

DTrace was absolutely a product of pre-Oracle Sun, not Oracle.

It's not like Sun wasn't also lawyer heavy.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#473

Post by DrJokepu »

gorjusborg wrote: post #352
DrJokepu wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also DB2. DB2 was (still is) an excellent database that IBM has completely fumbled.

It's very amusing to me that you bring up IBM in a discussion of the value of Oracle. I came here to say that if you want to understand Oracle's value, think IBM with less history.

Kind of, but there are some subtle differences in my opinion. Oracle is top-to-bottom evil, whose business model basically boils down to screwing over their clients and everyone else at every possible opportunity, comparable to the likes of McKinsey or Accenture.

IBM is a bit more nuanced. My wife grew up in an IBM town and a lot of her family and her friends’ families used to work there in the 70s and 80s. People, especially the engineers, used to take pride in their work there.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#474

Post by TheGRS »

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

Totally agreed looking at them from a development and cutting-edge viewpoint. They own what was once very competitive platforms and languages, which they still support. They have largely transitioned into rent seekers.

From the investment standpoint they still have a lot of value to siphon from, but its all rent seeking behavior, its not producing new ecosystems like them or Sun did in the past. Long-term blue chip play.

Though all the Paramount stuff is loosely coupled to them now, so tough to say if its a good long-term play anymore.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#475

Post by niek_pas »

tombert wrote: post #454
niek_pas wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a result, today is your last working day. As a European, I never realized that this is allowed under US labor law. That is absolutely insane. EDIT: some commentors have pointed out that the workers collect severance and unemployment --- I was not aware this is law in California, and that changes matters. I would, though, still find being suddenly out of a job fairly traumatic.

The at-will firing is just how it is in the US, but I do find it odd how accepting we've become with these corporations massively overhiring. If they have to fire twenty percent of the company, shouldn't that be a signal to investors that the people in charge are morons for overhiring thirty thousand people in the first place? Software engineers aren't cheap; assuming an average compensation of $250,000/year (which I…

Yeah, the "just how it is" part was the part I wasn't aware of. Sibling comment has pointed out that apparently the US is the only country in the world where this is the case. And totally agree on the latter point.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#476

Post by ctxc »

jedberg wrote: post #261

My Amazon layoff notice came at 5am. Same deal. I thought it was fake because it came to my personal email. Then I logged into my work computer and found that all my email had been erased except for a copy of the layoff notice and an invite to a 10am Zoom with HR. The funny part was the invite had everyone who had been laid off in the To: line. I was able to send internal only emails until 1pm, and then it logged me…

I was going to type you a sympathetic message and took a peek at your profile, and...well that's quite a resume you got there!

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#477

Post by triceratops »

renewiltord wrote: post #55
dafelst wrote: post #2

More victims of AI. Not actually of "AI is replacing jobs", more "oh shit we are spending too much and the product isn't good enough for us to ever make a return on our absurd over-investment".

One of the ideal things that companies can do is not hire people. A company that never hires someone will never let anyone go and consequently is the only ethical company. The worst thing that a company could do is pay someone to do a job for a while. In fact, one thing we could do is make sure that all jobs should be perpetual. If someone hires you, they can't stop paying you until they die or declare bankruptcy. Th…

> One of the ideal things that companies can do is not hire people

This, but unironically. Companies that make money without hiring anyone provide the most "value".

Simultaneously we should stop calling business owners "job creators". They're actually "job minimizers". They only hire people when there's no other choice.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#478

Post by giobox »

steve1977 wrote: post #416
tombert wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple used Java in a ton of backend stuff. At least the entire backend for iTunes (Jingle) was written in Java and very very small amount of Clojure.

There was a time (around the beginnings of Mac OS X) when Java was considered a first class citizen in Mac OS X, next to Objective-C. Some NeXT products like WebObjects got ported to Java (and ran not only the iTunes backend but also things like the original Dell online store) and there was something called the Java bridge which allowed you to program Cocoa applications with Java. https://developer.apple.com/library/…

It wasn't just Apple, in the late 90s/early 2000s there was a not insignificant number of folks in business/academia who thought Java would take over the world. Windows XP also shipped with an embedded JVM for running Java apps out of the box at one stage too, just before Microsoft doubled down on c#/.NET.

Along with MacOS X, Apple's Xcode IDE even had native java project support briefly in this era as well.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#479

Post by Izkata »

smoyer wrote: post #365
seanhunter wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: today I think there is genuinely nothing that anyone should use oracle for, but their database used to be seriously far ahead of the competition. A very long time ago (circa 2000) there were basically 2 databases that worked for use cases where you needed high availability and vertical scalability and those were Oracle and Sybase and Oracle was really the only game in town if you actually wanted certain…

"At the time, MySQL existed ..." You had to be careful with MySQL back then as constraints were syntactic sugar but not enforced. PostgreSQL was indeed much tougher to manage but more full-featured.

Not just constraints, transactions were also a no-op. The MyISAM engine is still available in modern versions if you want to experience this, it's just not default anymore.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#480

Post by mbloom1915 »

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

yeah... their "value prop" is keeping monoliths trapped and embedded in their systems with customizations out the wazoo. slow, painful death
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