What is happening with Oracle?

    After a couple of recent discussions about Oracle, I tried to analyze the position of the company and the processes in it. In short, it turns out that Oracle is experiencing serious difficulties, as it is suing its competitors without evidence.

    This is primarily seen in the lawsuit that Oracle filed against IBM regarding the misleading advertising of its Exadata database machines. Roughly speaking, Oracle said that its software runs 20 times faster, comparing some ideal configuration on modern equipment for a particular customer with the average abstract IMB configuration. There are details below, but it's like comparing a Formula 1 car and an SUV, saying that the SUV is 20 times faster in the forest.



    The National Advertising Association (USA) has already dismissed the lawsuit, but Oracle is going to appeal this decision.

    The priorities for solutions in several areas are symptomatically changing:


    • A company becomes less legible in its advertising lawsuits especially when its products become uncompetitive. In principle, it is logical: “as is” is not possible to compete, we must take the opportunity to squeeze a competitor in court and gain time that will allow us to get a little more profit.
    • It creates attractive pricing plans at first glance, but customers complain that in fact they pay a lot more than what was stated in the plans. This is confirmed in discussions on American forums. Who works with the company's products, please unsubscribe in the comments if this has affected you.
    • Marketers have become very active, while there are few facts, but many promises. This can speak either of big secret plans (which is doubtful), or of the difficulties of the company. Theoretically, the company in this situation may begin to make the wrong decisions, including tormenting its customers, turning away from the main users and trying to attract new customers.

    In my opinion, the main problem with Oracle is that its new hardware division is not working well, as its own Oracle vendors testify.

    In addition, after the purchase of Sun, Oracle got rid of Sun's CFO and put a loyal person in this place, which, it seems, does not concern end customers, but it will definitely resonate among investors.

    A major miscalculation of Oracle can be considered a deterioration in relations with HP, which allowed Oracle to really compete with IBM. In fact, after the loss of HP, Oracle will no longer be able to compete with IBM. Buying Sun did not help Oracle; on the contrary, it worsens its position. As a result, Oracle will have to fight both with HP and IBM alone, except that EMC, Cisco and SAP are combined.

    In order not to be unfounded, I cite below a translation of a sufficiently revealing story, which served as my starting point in these searches ( proof ).

    Oracle withdraws its advertising claims regarding Exadata following an IBM complaint

    IDG's Boston news agency reports that a press release by the self-regulating industry organization National Advertising Association, which released Tuesday, said Oracle is withdrawing its advertising claims that The performance of its Exadata database machines is many times greater than the hardware performance of IBM's Power Systems machines.

    IBM has contested Oracle claims published in an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. According to the National Advertising Association, the ad text stated that "Exadata machines, being 20 times faster ... replaced IBM again," and also that "a huge European retail chain moved their databases from IBM Power to Exadata ... that work 20 times faster".

    In its appeal to the association, IBM challenged Oracle’s claim that [Oracle machines] run 20 times faster than Power Systems machines, noting that it was overly generalized.

    In its press release, the association noted that Oracle, however, described its advertising as an implementation example, describing the experience of an individual customer. In addition, the vendor said that an “enlightened target audience” would understand this nuance.

    The association ultimately sided with IBM, deciding that “at least one reasonable interpretation of the disputed advertisement is that all Exadata systems or their vast majority are invariably, in all or in many aspects, operating 20 times faster than all IBM Power systems or their vast majority. " The press release also said that "the evidence presented did not support this claim."

    Although Oracle agreed to stop the advertisement, it also plans to challenge the decision of the association, which recognized the advertisement as "inappropriately generalized."

    The Oracle Press Manager was not available for live comment.

    Jeff Cross, the head of the press service of IBM, said in an interview that the company was satisfied with the decision of the association. “This comparison was hardly acceptable,” he added. The elderberry garden, and the uncle in Kiev. They compared the new Exadata with Power Systems, which has been available for 6 years. ”

    Exadata machines were first introduced in 2008. They integrate Oracle software with server hardware and Infiniband network adapters.

    Cross also notes that the Exadata system uses the Oracle 11g database management system, while the Power Systems customer used an earlier version - 10g.

    In the dispute between Oracle and IBM, one of the experts took a neutral position.

    “All parties are to blame for this kind of exaggeration,” said Kurt Monash, a database analyst at Monash Research. But a little more fault is still on Oracle. ”

    “If your new system cannot significantly surpass someone’s old system in at least a few queries [to the database], it means that you are doing something wrong,” he added. Use newer or more perfect hardware; Use newer or better software! Entrust the performance tuning to a reputable specialist, and then you will achieve excellent performance indicators! ”

    Over the past few months, this is the second decision made by the National Advertising Association in favor of IBM and against Oracle. In April, the association recommended that Oracle abandon advertising, which indicated prices and announced performance by comparing its Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 computing system with a competing IBM platform.

    According to the National Advertising Association, Oracle did not agree with all the arguments of the association, but refused advertising.


    In my opinion, if Oracle does not change the line of behavior, then for her everything will end very badly. Either the company will need a new major ally, or something that will dramatically (in a year or two) give priority over other market players in the development. Otherwise, even with perfect marketing, which, admittedly, is really very strong, the company will lose customers faster.

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