Oracle must move quickly and decisively to customers’ anxiety and restore confidence in the database maker’s technical service and support organization – particularly with respect to the company’s Sun Microsystems’ software and hardware assets. The latest independent ITIC/ GFI Software (formerly Sunbelt Software) 2011 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey, polled 468 businesses worldwide found It found that Oracle products received the lowest ratings for the quality of its service and support of any of the major vendors. Users gave Oracle products, service and support mixed ratings.

Three out of 10 organizations rated Oracle products, technical service and support as Excellent or Very Good. A nearly equal number of survey participants – 26 percent gave Oracle’s offerings a Good rating, while 25 percent graded it as just Satisfactory. Nearly two out of 10 of the organizations polled, gave Oracle’s products, services and support a negative rating; with 13 percent judging it Poor and the remaining six percent giving it an Unsatisfactory rating.
Oracle Reliability, Service and Support by the Numbers

 
The reliability of Oracle’s Solaris operating system and the company’s x86 and SPARC servers remains fairly strong and competitive, though their uptime and reliability do not match the leaders in those categories.
Specifically, 71 percent of customers running Oracle Solaris 10 on SPARC servers reported they experienced one or fewer minor unplanned Tier 1 outages per server, per annum; while 79 percent of users running Oracle Solaris on x86 based server hardware recorded one or fewer Tier 1 per server annual unplanned outages.
While those reliability figures are very respectable they lag well behind the 85 percent of IBM AIX 7.1; 84 percent of Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise 11 users; 84 percent of Debian GNU Linux 4.0 and 5.0 users; 82 percent of HP UX 11i v.3 and Ubuntu Server 9 and 10 users who reported one or fewer unanticipated per server, per annum minor Tier one incidents.
Oracle Solaris 10 (on x86 servers) and Oracle Solaris 10 (on SPARC servers) logged similarly respectable statistics for the most severe Tier 3 outages, with 85 percent of x86 based Solaris users and 80 percent of Solaris SPARC based users indicating they had experienced one or fewer per server, per annum Tier 3 outages of four hours or longer duration.
However, once again the Oracle Solaris OS Tier 3 performance trailed rivals HP UX 11i v3 (86 percent), IBM (all versions of AIX – v5.3, v6.1 and v7.1 – 88 percent), Microsoft (Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 – 90 and 92 percent), Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise 11 (86 percent); and Ubuntu Server 9 and 10 (87 percent).
Even Apple Mac OS X 10.6, a recent entrant into the corporate server OS market, managed roughly equivalent Tier 3 server outage statistics (83 percent of users reporting one or less than one per server, per annum outage) to the Oracle Solaris server operating system platforms.
The survey participants were in accord that the majority of their unplanned Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 server outages were due to integration, interoperability and technical service and support issues rather than any inherent flaws in the underlying platforms themselves, the vendors’ ability to respond quickly and efficiently when problems arise becomes a crucial component that positively or negatively impacts the length and severity of a server OS or server hardware outage.
It was clear both in customers’ responses to the Web-based multiple choice questions, as well as the anecdotal essay comments and first person customer interviews, that many enterprise customers are unhappy with Oracle service and support.
Users Say Oracle Service and Support Slips

Satisfaction with Oracle’s technical service and support in its Oracle database core competency, the former Sun Solaris operating system and x86-based and SPARC hardware lagged far behind longtime rivals like IBM, Microsoft and HP.
Only 31 percent of the respondents gave Oracle an “excellent” or “very good” rating for product performance, service and support. This is in sharp contrast to the over 75 percent of survey participants who gave rivals HP and IBM and 70 percent of Dell users who gave those vendors “excellent” and “very good” marks for their hardware product performance, service and support.
And in Oracle’s core competency databases, both IBM’s DB2 and Microsoft’s SQL Server scored significantly higher satisfaction ratings among survey respondents. Over 80 percent of those polled gave IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server “excellent” or “very good” ratings compared to the 43 percent of respondents who gave the Oracle DB an “excellent” or “very good” rating.
Some of the anecdotal user comments about Oracle support were scathing by any measure:
“Our Sun support has become even more abysmal since crazy Larry purchased them; it’s hard to believe,” remarked an IT manager at a large healthcare organization with over 100 servers.
The VP of IT at a large insurance company was equally critical. “We’re paying top dollar for Oracle Premier Service and support – which keeps going up – and we have little or nothing to show for it other than a big bill,” he said.
Such comments unfortunately were not the exception.
Oracle also registered the highest percentage of dissatisfied users: 20 percent or one-in-five respondents judge Oracle (Sun) hardware products, service and support to be “poor” or “unsatisfactory.” By contrast only a small five percent minority of HP users, four percent of Dell customers and less than two percent of IBM users rated those companies’ hardware offerings to be “poor” or “unsatisfactory.”

Another factor playing a pivotal part in 2011 market dynamics is how Oracle will manage, support and integrate the Sun Microsystems’ offerings into its own product portfolio. This includes the aforementioned Sun Solaris OS, x86-based and SPARC server hardware and the open source MySQL database. Despite repeated public assurances from Oracle executives that it will continue to support and develop MySQL and even provide integration with other Oracle offerings, users are still wary. The Solaris and SPARC installed base of customers are equally restive and frankly skeptical based as much on what they haven’t seen in last 12 months since Oracle completed the Sun acquisition.

Conclusions

Oracle must act quickly and decisively to shore up and improve service and support for all its major products. Otherwise, customers – particularly the already ravaged and diminished Sun Microsystems Solaris, MySQL, and SPARC and x 86 server installed base will continue to decline and defect. They will be encouraged by rival vendors, particularly IBM, HP and Microsoft, who will continue to aggressively capitalize on user confusion and dissatisfaction to entice corporations to their respective platforms.

IBM and Microsoft are very well positioned at present and over the next 12 months. IBM’s AIX server operating system, DB2 database platform and System x and Power Systems communities are solid, stable and very loyal. The fact that 72% of survey respondents to ITIC’s January 2010 Database survey said they hadn’t switched DB platforms in the last three years and the fact that it’s harder for very large enterprises in market segments like banking, financial and insurance (traditional IBM strongholds) to switch because of the legacy investment, bodes well for the company. Many of these enterprises have mature DB environments that are likely to remain stable for many years to come.

In Microsoft’s case the ongoing, tangible improvements to both the Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 platforms make them extremely robust, reliable enterprise ready solutions. Microsoft’s close partnership with server hardware vendors Dell and HP provides Windows Server with a solid foundation that bolsters the overall reliability of the OS. Microsoft also has a very strong developer community, combined with a vibrant reseller channel, puts Microsoft in a good position to expand its presence into SME and enterprise organizations.

By contrast the Oracle customer base and associated developer communities – particularly Open Source developers – remain extremely skeptical and wary. 

Oracle also faces other challenges that could hamper its efforts to ameliorate its all-important technical service and support issues. The company’s myriad acquisitions over the last five years could continue to be an unwelcome distraction and hamper efforts to rapidly respond to customers and developers.  That said, on the plus side, Oracle’s financials continue strong.  The company continues to see strong demand for new software license renewals and maintenance plans. Oracle posted has quarterly earnings growth of 28.30 percent and quarterly revenue growth of 46.50 percent in its latest financials. It’s profit margins are a healthy 21.18 percent and return on assets stand at 21.88 percent.

The key to Oracle and any vendor’s continued success is to put customers first. According to the findings in our survey, Oracle would be wise to fix its service and support problems fully and quickly.

Memo to Larry Ellison: The Roman Coliseum halted gladiator combats around 435 A.D. SAP has thrown in the towel and has no interest in continuing a court battle. Hewlett-Packard executives are refusing to accept service on your lawsuits and HP’s newly named chief executive Leo Apotheker is laying low, presumably dodging your increasingly vituperative verbal assaults. You’ve got no takers for the bloody, bare knuckles brawl you crave. What does that tell you?
It should signal an end to the Circus Maximus sideshow but it won’t.
No one desires this much attention or sticks their chin out spoiling for a fight like Ellison. And in an industry like high tech that’s overflowing with giant egos, that’s saying something. It’s true that Ellison’s antics always make for reams and reams of good copy. Reporters calling for comments on the latest developments don’t even bother to suppress their mirth. Enough is enough, though. The Larry Ellison Show would be more amusing if corporate customers weren’t getting caught in the crossfire.
The ongoing court case involving SAP’s acquisition TomorrowNow is not of course just about wresting an enormous $4 billion settlement out of SAP for copyright infringement. Where Oracle’s chief executive is involved, it’s never just about the matter at hand. There’s always a bigger agenda and it usually involves a grand spectacle.
In this case, Ellison is attempting to shoot and wound/kill two competitors — SAP and Hewlett-Packard with the same bullet — all the while “treating” industry watchers to a front row seat to his latest histrionics.
Remember that 60s axiom, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” That’s exactly how competitors are reacting to Ellison’s bitter, bellicose attacks. The other combatants are surrendering (SAP) or hiding from him (HP’s Apotheker) and Ellison refuses to cease hostilities.
One can only shake one’s head at the serio-comic spectacle of SAP executives who have admitted that the now defunct TomorrowNow infringed on Oracle’s copyright. Earlier this week SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott apologized to Oracle in Federal court (when does that ever happen?), acknowledging that SAP had not been “appropriately vigilant” in overseeing the actions of TomorrowNow. For those not familiar with the case TomorrowNow illegally downloaded software and support documents from Oracle Web sites.
Ellison is unlikely to get that $4 billion in damages he claims Oracle is owed for TomorrowNow’s copyright infringement. Ellison testified that up to 30 percent of Oracle’s PeopleSoft customers and 10 percent of Oracle’s Siebel Systems users might have defected. But when pressed to provide actual figures, he revealed that Oracle had only lost about 350 customers and not thousands.
Oracle customers concerned over rising support costs, product security issues
Ellison should count his blessings. Oracle may in fact face customer defections in double digit percentages over the coming months and he won’t have anyone to blame but himself.
Over the past four years, Ellison has spent over $40 billion, gobbling up over 40 companies including large companies like PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems, BEA Systems, Sun Microsystems and ATG. Under the best circumstances, even the most amicable and complementary mergers and acquisitions are challenging for the merged entities and their respective installed customer bases. Oracle’s seemingly non-stop M&A spree has been characterized by several, very public, protracted internecine conflicts – most notably PeopleSoft.
Ellison continues to spew venom against his rivals while Oracle’s own customers fume. The Sun Microsystems SPARC, Solaris and MySQL users or what’s left of them, are increasingly restive. They are rightfully concerned about the fate of these acquired products under Oracle’s brand. They are also increasingly vocal in their complaints about rising service and support costs and worsening security. Oracle’s own database platform has had the dubious distinction of recording the highest number of security vulnerabilities of any of the major databases for the last eight years, according to statistics compiled by the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST).
On these subjects Ellison is silent.
Last week, Oracle sought to staunch a backlash from confused and frustrated MySQL users worried about new pricing and packaging options. Rumors swept the Web that Oracle was reportedly doubling the pricing. There’s more to the story than that, but the MySQL open source database pricing and support has increased since Oracle acquired Sun. To be fair, Oracle simplified the complex MySQL product packaging and support pricing structure that existed under Sun. Oracle now gives all MySQL users 24×7 global support. Under Sun, users who purchased the MySQL Basic package for $599 were not entitled to any phone support. Oracle now gives MySQL Basic customers support; however the new entry level pricing has risen from $599 to $2,000 for the Standard Edition. Additionally, large enterprises that paid Sun Microsystems $4,999 for the MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition also got sticker shock: Oracle hiked the price to $10,000 per server.
And that’s not all. Earlier this year, Oracle quietly also initiated widespread changes to the Sun Microsystems’ SunSpectrum support (which officially ended in mid-March) replacing it with a new program. This significantly hiked support costs for many former Sun customers at a time when many businesses are struggling to find the funds for new product upgrades. On a positive note, support renewals for existing SunSpectrum contracts are now priced at a flat annual price based on the individual user’s SunSpectrum contract. The renewal price is the same as the SunSpectrum contract currently in place. However, users who read the fine print, will note that Oracle changed the terms and conditions of its hardware warranties and Premier Support for Systems contracts.
Translation: Oracle cut back on standard support services and will provide onsite coverage only for specified products. Oracle’s new product coverage and support fees for the former Sun products and services take the concept of “nickel and diming” to new heights.
Customers that want 24×7 coverage, onsite response and faster responses times above and beyond a limited one-year warranty and Monday through Friday phone support will pay handsomely for the top tier coverage. Oracle now requires customers to buy support for every component, part and spare part they order. There are no add-ons to existing contracts; customers don’t have the option of cancelling contracts and customers receive not credit for any equipment covered under their contracts if they decide to take them out of service or dispose of them.
Corporations that opt not to purchase a support agreement at the time they buy their products will pay a hefty “reinstatement fee” of 150 percent of the standard support for the period of time between the initial product sale and the date they purchase the support. The 150 percent fee is exclusive of the standard yearly support contract prices!
Businesses that want to hang on to their capital expenditure monies are well advised to instruct their IT managers to learn how to install and replace parts themselves. Oracle will charge customers incremental fees to install any “self-service replacement part.”
Oracle is not alone in initiating price hikes for service and support. But its users might have less cause to grumble if they were satisfied with the quality of the support.
The latest ITIC 2010-2011 Global Server Hardware and Server OS Reliability Survey, which polled over 400 businesses worldwide found that Oracle products received the lowest ratings for security and for the quality of its service and support of any of the major vendors. Only 31 percent of the respondents gave Oracle an “excellent” or “very good” rating for product performance, service and support. This is in sharp contrast to the over 75 percent of survey participants who gave rivals HP and IBM and 70 percent of Dell users who gave those vendors “excellent” and “very good” marks for their hardware product performance, service and support.
And in Oracle’s core competency databases, both IBM’s DB2 and Microsoft’s SQL Server significantly scored higher satisfaction ratings among the survey respondents. Over 80 percent of those polled gave IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server “excellent” or “very good” ratings compared to the 43 percent of respondents who gave the Oracle DB an “excellent” or “very good” rating.
Some of the anecdotal user comments about Oracle support were scathing.
“Our Sun support has become even more abysmal since crazy Larry purchased them; it’s hard to believe,” remarked an IT manager at a large healthcare organization with over 100 servers.
Oracle registered the highest percentage of dissatisfied users, with 20 percent or one-in-five respondents judging Oracle (Sun) hardware products, service and support to be “poor” or “unsatisfactory.” By contrast only a small five percent minority of HP users, four percent of Dell customers and less than three percent of IBM users rated those companies hardware offerings to be “poor” or “unsatisfactory.”
Focus on Business Not Brawling
It’s clear that SAP clearly has no interest in continuing its court battle with Oracle. Since Ellison is obviously still spoiling for a fight he might instead get himself booked on a TV show like “Survivor” or Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice. Alternatively he could see if one of the boxing associations will oblige him and arrange a match with one of their champions.
Ellison and Oracle should let the lawyers hammer out an appropriate settlement with SAP. And for the sake of its large common customer base, call off the search to serve Apotheker the subpoena, tone down the anti-HP diatribe and get back to work.
The best thing Oracle can do is to concentrate on shipping high quality, high performance and highly secure products and delivering top notch service worthy of those pricy support premiums.
Otherwise, one of these days Ellison might be surprised to find that the Oracle customers, like the noble gladiator Spartacus have revolted and defected to competitors who wisely paid more attention to business than brawling.

“When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.” African proverb
Hewlett-Packard Co. and Oracle Corp.’s decision to settle the lawsuit over Oracle’s hiring of Mark Hurd as co-President after weeks of public wrangling is welcome news to everyone but the corporate attorneys.
But don’t expect the two vendors to just pick up and resume their former close partnership. It got very ugly, very fast. And the reverberations from Hurd’s hiring to HP’s recent appointment of Leo Apotheker, as the new CEO effective November 1, will be felt for a long time. HP’s decision to hire the German-born Apotheker, who is also the former CEO of SAP, is to put it politely a big “take that, Oracle!” Forget the surface smiles, behind the scenes Oracle and HP have their ears pinned back, teeth bared and swords sharpened as they gird for battle.
This was not the typical cross-competitive carping that vendors routinely spew to denigrate their rivals’ products and strategies. The issues between HP and Oracle are very personal and very deep. The verbal volleys Oracle CEO Larry Ellison lobbed at HP in recent weeks exposed the changing nature of this decades old alliance. It is morphing from a close, mutually beneficial collaboration to a head-on collision in several key product areas. Ellison’s words did more than just wound HP: they also opened up deep fissures in the relationship which are as big as the San Andreas Fault.
The HP/Oracle relationship will survive for the sake of their common customers but will likely never be the same.
The industry-at-large will probably never learn the “real” reason(s) the HP board of directors peremptorily ousted Mark Hurd as CEO. What is clear is that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was motivated by more than just concern for his friend when he publicly castigated HP for the firing and extolling the business acumen of his tennis buddy. You just knew Ellison was going to give Hurd a prominent position at Oracle. And he did: co-President. In a regulatory filing earlier this week, to end the lawsuit, HP disclosed that Hurd will give back 325 thousands shares of restricted stock shares valued at $13.6 million that Hurd received as part of his severance package. Hurd gets to keep the over $12 million in cash he received. In exchange, Hurd will not disclose any of HP’s trade secrets.
This last stipulation is very sticky. Defining what constitutes intellectual property (IP) is just as tricky as defining obscenity. In over 30 years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been unable to achieve consensus on what constitutes obscenity.
How exactly will HP monitor Hurd to prevent him from telling Oracle what he knows about HP’s general tactics, strategy and relationships with customers, partners, competitors and general product directions and acting on them by counter-marketing and ? It’s not like they can put ankle monitor around his brain. Short of bugging Hurd’s communications, HP can never have 100 percent surety that some of their secrets are no longer secret. Hurd will use his knowledge of HP’s workings and wield it like a weapon – on Oracle’s behalf.
Any way you look at it losing Hurd to Oracle is a big blow to HP even if they did fire him for undisclosed inappropriate behavior.
Larry Ellison is many things. But of all the many adjectives, epithets and sobriquets that have been used to describe him and invectives that have been hurled at him, stupid is not one of them. Mr. Ellison has a plan. It most assuredly involves the aggrandizement of Oracle at the expense of competitors as his firm increasingly finds itself in head-to-head competition with HP. Why else, would he effectively trash the decades long, mutually beneficial and collaborative partnership between his firm and HP and then deliver the coup de grace by hiring Hurd?
The HP Board of Directors, while more reserved and civil than the outspoken and openly bellicose Ellison, is just as committed to the ongoing fight for high tech supremacy. Outwardly HP will maintain its dignified and understated mien but behind the closed (and hopefully not bugged) doors of its boardroom, the HP “suits” are plotting each move and counter-move with great deliberation. Their decision to file suit against Hurd scant hours after Oracle announced his appointment as co-President of the database market leader, shows that they’re shedding the velvet gloves in favor of the iron fist.

Regardless of the settlement, the underlying reasons that HP said it filed suit against Hurd for taking the Oracle co-Presidency: “…In his new position, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties without necessarily using and disclosing HP’s trade secrets,” still exist.

Hurd and Oracle are highly unlikely to steal any of HP’s IP with respect to specific products and engineering. But there’s a lot of gray area surrounding IP and what types of knowledge are already in the public domain. You’d better believe that both HP and Oracle have set up war rooms in their respective boardrooms.
Make no mistake; there will be casualties of war.
And to quote the African proverb, the blades of grass in this fight are the respective customers, third party suppliers as well as the sales and distribution channels that support the enormous HP and Oracle ecosystems.
According to International Data Group (IDC) statistics, HP is the world’s largest technology company by revenue, and the top PC and server vendor and Oracle is the world’s third-largest software company.
HP and Oracle by the Numbers
On paper HP and Oracle appear evenly matched. The notable exception is in revenues, even after a five year multi-billion buying spree, Oracle sales still trail significantly behind HP.

From Collaborative to Competitive
Until recently the two firms did not compete head-on. Though HP and Oracle’s management and styles were/ worlds apart, their partnership thrived despite such differences.
Oracle is defined by the brash Ellison, while HP executives take a low-key and platform agnostic approach to most high tech competitors excepting IBM. For years Oracle and HP were bound by their mutual rivalry albeit in different product arenas – Oracle competed fiercely with IBM’s DB2 database while HP and IBM competed in just about everything else including, PC and server hardware, as well as the lucrative services market.
After decades of publicly hurling invectives at one another, Oracle and IBM in the last several days have done an about-face and are now engaged in an almost embarrassing display of public affection. This love fest would truly be gag-worthy if not for the realization that Big Blue and Oracle don’t hate each other any less; at this point in time they just loathe HP more. It’s truly a case of: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano decided to seize the opportunity to blast HP, publicly castigating them in a September 15 Wall Street Journal interview. Palmisano gave a detailed litany of HP’s faux pas. They included mishandling Hurd’s ouster by giving him a $40 million+ severance package which he said was “not a good use of shareholder money”; allowing Hurd to slash HP’s research and development budget to $2.8 billion – just 2.5 percent of total revenue and for getting in a bidding war with Dell over the acquisition of virtualization storage vendor 3Par and paying more that what it’s worth. Palmisano’s most acerbic statement was that HP was in such a weakened state that IBM no longer considered them a competitor. Not true of course, but it stings just the same.
It was Ellison and Hurd’s turn to heap praise on IBM during the Oracle September 16 earnings call. Ellison called IBM “a great services partner,” and said his partnership with IBM is “absolutely critical.” Ellison positively gushed while observing that “IBM’s mainframes add value because they aren’t commodity boxes and serve a real need.”
HP has remained characteristically mum about Palmisano’s and Ellison’s comments but it is undoubtedly plotting a counter attack. .
Collaboration and “co-opetition” between HP and Oracle may exist on paper and publicly but there is open enmity behind the scenes.
Merger Mania
The reality is that all of the top tier high technology vendors are on a collision course with one another spurred on by the need to grow by acquisition rather than organically. In a challenging economy it’s a dog-eat-dog fight for corporate and consumer monies.
Consider this: In the last six years Oracle’s Ellison has spent as much on mergers and acquisitions – over $40 billion (including the January acquisition of Sun Microsystems for $5.9 billion) – as the company’s profits over a 30 year span. In Ellison’s grand strategy scheme, the moves make sense because a bigger Oracle can more equally compete with the likes of IBM and SAP. HP is keeping pace with Oracle in the M&A sweepstakes – having bought Compaq, EDS, 3Com and most recently swooping down and outbidding Dell Computer for virtualization storage company 3Par for $2.4 billion and security vendor ArcSight for $1.5 billion. And now HP is in a bidding war with IBM to buy Israeli based Radware which makes application delivery, application security solutions and load-balancing switches.
Winners and Losers
Corporate customers are the biggest and most immediate potential losers. Partnerships, mergers and acquisitions may look like a game of Monopoly on paper but there’s a lot at stake. Even the best of circumstances – an amicable and well planned purchase with little or no product overlap – there’s a certain amount of disruption that follows an acquisition. In these cases, it takes six months to a year to integrate and assimilate an acquired firm into the fold. Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems which includes Sun’s SPARC server hardware, Solaris operating system and the open source MySQL database has a lot of users concerned about the future of those product lines, despite the company’s public reassurances.
And while few distributors or users will go on the record, many of them are understandably nervous about the potential ramifications when their major hardware infrastructure and software vendors fall out.
Imagine you’re the CEO, CIO, CTO or VP of IT who has to make purchasing decisions for the next three-to-four year upgrade cycle. Can you trust that HP and Oracle have truly made up? Or are worried about when hostilities between the two will break out again and that your firm might get caught in the crossfire? Can you trust the promises of your vendor(s) to retain an acquired firm’s product portfolio? And even if they do, will the top engineers and product managers from a company like Sun (to cite just one example) remain with the company post-acquisition? Will the licenses carry over or will your organization face steep price hikes in volume licensing? Service and support is another big issue in a post merger entity. Once again, corporate customers are wise to ponder potential changes.
Organizations also get rightfully nervous that their vendors will get distracted by the public wrangling and potential lawsuits. These issues frequently lead to product delays and quality issues. Oracle is the world’s Number One database vendor and the Oracle database also has the dubious distinction of being the platform with the most security flaws. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the government agency tasked with monitoring security vulnerabilities, it recorded a whopping 321 security vulnerabilities associated with the Oracle database from January 2009 through June 2010. That’s six times more than the 49 vulnerabilities Microsoft’s SQL Server notched and nearly triple the 121 security vulnerabilities recorded by IBM’s DB2 database during the same eight and a half year period. Though there’s no proof of a connection, the security issues associated with Oracle’s database spiked sharply in 2006 – around the same time, the company embarked on its merger and acquisition campaign and they’ve remained elevated over the past four years.
Though reluctant to speak on the record, corporate customers and distributors have some trepidation about the impact of the growing competition between HP and Oracle, even though the immediate crisis appears to be over. If you have concerns, now is the time to voice them and also exercise your right to comparison shop. Speak frankly with your sales representatives and resellers. Use the confusion to your advantage to negotiate for better terms and conditions.
The biggest potential winners in this fight are HP and Oracle competitors. IBM, Dell and other hardware vendors have been openly wooing Sun’s SPARC and Solaris customers ever since Oracle first announced its intention to purchase Sun. Those efforts will continue unabated. IBM and Microsoft executives are also undoubtedly contemplating special sales promotions to lure customers away from the Oracle and MySQL database platforms.
IBM’s Palmisano was right about one thing: HP seriously erred when it slashed its R&D budget to just 2.5 percent of annual revenue. It should rectify that immediately.
There’s another apt African proverb: “When the music changes, so does the dance.” And when it comes to vendors, there’s no such thing as a permanent partner.