>>I don't believe Oracle counted on large revenues from NC licensing.
>>Did it say this? I still think that many of the naysayers claim that
>>Oracle overspent on the network computer and significantly missed nc
>>revenue targets. I see no evidence for either claim,....
First, I believe that NC projections are in the 10-15M unit sales per year in 5 years (according to some analysts). These are somewhat reasonable if the business model converts to about 50% of the large business. Right now, PC's are doing over 70M units (what I remember for 1996). If Oracle really thought that NC would help in the home and school, their projected number could be 30M or more.
Second, the number I have seen for Oracle revenue for software, the standard and the ability to call it a NC is about $50 (or so) per unit.
Now if Oracle was really expecting sales to be 2-3M in 1997, instead of about 1M, that would represent a $150-300M shortfall, concentrated in the last couple of quarters. This is not a major shortfall, but it can be significant and if the expenses were ramped up expecting this, then it can explain a lot of Oracle problems.
>>On the object front, it looks like your analysis contains a
>>contradiction I see in the trade press ....
You are going to have the same contradiction in the market. Not all customers are the same. Some will be more interested in different aspects. Oracle's response to Informix would lead a lot of people to expect something sooner than later on the object front. If one of the major questions is objects, they may delay until they are satisfied that Oracle will really be able to produce on the object front (and not change direction again). Others will not care at this time and be unaffected. Different customers, different concerns, different results.
Mark |
