Database Business Problems at Oracle? 210
abb_road writes "Wall Street responded to yesterday's report of a 42% rise in profits by pushing Oracle's stock down. Despite a 77% increase in applications business, investors are worried that Oracle's core database business remains comparatively stagnant. Though Ellison claims that the DB business will grow in double digits over the next few years, it seems that more companies are switching to open source rather than paying Oracle $40,000 a processor."
Open Source vs. Oracle (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about sales, not technology or open source (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, Oracle has been very generous in allowing developer downloads of their DBMS; I was able to take their Linux port, install it on an old box running Red Hat, and port a Microsoft SQL Server-based back end over to Oracle in a couple of days just as an experiment. Obviously, to actually use the product would cost some bucks but this kind of flexibility is what helps keep Oracle's tentacles in so many businesses.
The other thing that the analysts ignored is that the database and enterprise software business isn't so much about having innovative technology, contrary to what was asserted in the Business Week article but rather having an effective sales organization. DBMS and enterprise management software is sales driven, not innovation driven. Executives don't watch commercials about sexy features in the latest rev of Oracle or Sql Server, then order a few copies from Amazon. It's the inside sales teams that patiently build relationships over the years. IBM knows this, Oracle knows this, and MS knows it too. Sybase tried but their hubris and arrogance brought them down. (direct personal experience with that!)
No doubt, while Larry crows about upcoming tech innovations, he's internally yelling at the sales teams to get more aggressive, offer more discounts, and steal more customers from Bill and from the SAP people. He'll eke out a few more percentage points of market share, and the investors will be satisfied for a couple more quarters. That's how the business works.
Re:Works for me (Score:3, Insightful)
If the cost of lower performance is less than $40K per CPU then OSS is the way to go. Since OSS is in a continual state of improvement, I've got to think that it is the selection of choice for anyone with a budget. It is most certainly at least worth a look, even to an entrenched Oracle or MSSQL camp.
-nB
Lies.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we have to stoop to this to make our point?
You can get Oracle server for as cheap as $150 per named user, with a three user minimum last I checked. This is perfect for many small business applications. And there are pricing schemes that gradually go up from there depending on the situation.
There are many great open source databases ( I use SQLite extensively ), but the commercial vendors still bring a lot to the table, and sometimes are even the best choice all things considered ( gasp! )
This is a GoodThing® (Score:3, Insightful)
When you look at software purchasing patterns, it seems that most software purchases are driven by four things: cost, features, familiarity, and "safety." Open Source software usually competes strongly on the first, moderately well on the second, and not so well on the third and fourth. Asking DBAs to use something they're not familiar with means that they're going to be working slower and harder--not the choice that most people make. In addition, the "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" syndrome sometimes prevents Open Source choices from getting a fair shake. But it appears that Open Source tools are starting to compete on those last two fronts as well.
A lot of geeks like to fiddle around with software on their own, and the "free" part of Open Source plays right to this. After all, are you going to pay for a Microsoft Sequel Server license, or try out MySQL when you're doing something for your own satisfaction? I'm a good example of something similar: I wanted some dynamic Web pages, but I didn't want to pay for ASP support through my ISP. So instead I started looking into PHP and eventually wound up using PHP to handle the dynamic content.
Once people involved in making decisions (not perhaps the decision-makers themselves, but people with input) start using Open Source for themselves, a lot of the "I don't know it so it's harder and slower" goes right out the window. Sure your average CRM developer might not be making the decision, but if they're asked about DB support and they know PostgreSQL because that's what they used to build their roll-your-own blog, they may offer that as an option.
As Open Source comes into use in the market, that helps alleviate the "safety" factor, too. When you can point to a large organization that's successfully running enterprise-grade applications on Open Source, it's easier for the decision makers to rationalize choosing an Open Source solution.
$40K/CPU is BS (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you're negotiating with Oracle directly, something I do not recommend, then all you have to do is mention mySQL or PostgreSQL, and Oracle will drop their prices.
nitpicking (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sure that there are many consulting firms that can mimick this kind of turn-key solution using PostgreSQL, but I'm not sure that they are as established--that is, give the CEO of XYZ company the warm & fuzzy that they require when they're about to undertake a multi-million dollar project whose backbone has to be a rock-solid DBMS.
It would be fabulous if Vault 10 IT consulting firms could provide this level of service using open source but that's just not the case Right Now(tm).
Its hardware and performance... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oracle is a very good database, no doubt about that, but what is the need of the business? As hardware becomes less and less expensive the performance and stability of the database becomes less of a differentiator.
It is true the market for databases is growing, but it is not the high-end database market. Especially now that the definition of high-end is moved up by the availability of less expensive hardware. It is better to spend money on good hardware, backup and storage, rather than on the database license.
So why by an oracle database? Only if you need the really high end performance of your database, that outranks the affordable hardware, you'll need to look at products like oracle.
Re:Works for me (Score:5, Insightful)
In an odd way, this may make Oracle's high end database product more secure.
There is no way that Postgres or MySQL is even close to the kinds of scalability and features that Oracle has. Trust me. It's just that people like you don't need certain capabilities that are a very good deal for Oracle customers. Nor do 99% of all applications. But in terms of value 99% of applications doesn't amount to 99% of profit for an outfit like Oracle.
There's no way that MS SQL Server comes close either. Trust me on this one too. I've used both. SQL Server is perfectly adequate and maybe even preferable for many applications, but comparing it to Oracle is a joke. Just recently I read a MS announcement of a middling-huge application that was done on SQL server. I was impressed, until I realized it wouldn't be remotely newsworthy if it has been done in Oracle. It was impressive for SQL Server, and probably only possible given certain aspects of the application.
What Postgres and MySQL mean is that in the long term there are no profits in the low end of the database market for general RDBMS duties, and not much future in the mid-range. Take them out of the picture, and Microsoft has a self-funded machine for nibblng its way into the high end. I'm not saying they won't get there, but I see a potential for financial pain along the way. The market position for SQL Server is really this: it integrates well with the MS tools, and its available on all MS OS platforms (Wince and NT derivatives). If it weren't for that, then it would be a sitting duck.
Oracle XE there mainly as a way to keep mind share. It means a lot more people will be familiar with Oracle technology, providing a cadre of workers who are prepared for large scale apps.
Honestly It's all about ROI (Score:2, Insightful)
Many companies are done with the high ticket low support even on low end hardware such as a 4 processor 16 gigabyte SQL server. we are forced to Enterprise if we want to use the >4Gig ram which makes a huge difference. so Either we stare at $48,000 in SQL license fees per server or find something else. Hell at that price we can probably get our application completely rewritten to our specs and own it by outsourcing to india.
Re:Postgresql vs. Oracle flame-war.... GO! (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I'm using PostgreSQL now because I keep running into problems with the Oracle server. The listener isn't listening to the network, so I only have local access and I need to share the data with others. I keep running out of space and need more tablespaces added to Oracle. The DBA who supports that database is only available for supporting this environment on a part time basis. The inevitable result of wave after wave of cost cutting is that we have a fraction of the manpower we need to do our work, so some things just don't happen. We used to have two DBA's locally and everything was efficient. Now we have part of one whose work hours rarely overlap with mine, so getting things done is painful.
A database is just a tool. In this case, I am proficient enough with PostgreSQL that I can use that and be more productive than trying to limp along with no DBA on Oracle.
One Example? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. Spare me the spin.
Isn't it also possible that the far cheaper closed source alternatives [sqlpass.org] are getting a little business [com.com] as well?
Oracle has always been pricey, but for a long time their DB features were hard to beat. Competitors, both closed and open, and finally getting to the point where they are on all levels with Oracle. [gartner.com]
Re:Business is wising up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Works for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Open Source vs. Oracle (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't know about open source... (Score:5, Insightful)
Forgiving is not something I want out of a database. I want my database to take every possible opportunity to reject bad data.
Re:Works for me (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, this is capitalism. If somebody is willing to pay $20K where $3K would do, well... On the other hand, Microsoft made Oracle stand up and take notice. As a result of this, Oracle Standard has been priced pretty much the same as SQL Server. This is also capitalism.
Oracle licensing these days is an exacting science, carefully contrinved to squeeze every last bit of revenue out of a customer, while providing him with a competitively priced product. It's tricky on both ends. Oracle risks turning off customers with licensing options whose evaluation rivals, if not exceeds the complexity of evaluating many technical requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if many people choose SQL Server not because it was cheaper, but they weren't sure about what they needed to license from Oracle.
Customers who are not careful can also end up spending huge amounts of money by licensing too much or too little. And if you choose wrong, Oracle is going to do the exact minimum needed to prevent a large scale customer revolt. Most of the time means they do nothing for you. There are no upgrade or conversion paths between license models, so caveat emptor. That's also capitalism.