On a different tack: I have been an Oracle hater for many years. As a CIO, I felt Ellison acted from personal interest instead of in the customer's interest. This applied to the development and focus (or lack of it) on the DBMS; his groping about for new paradigms, such as NC, et etc etc.
I have now changed. ORCL seems to me to be properly addressing customer issues AND leading them to new insights and possibilities. The use of networked apps, esp. across an intranet, if believed by someone like myself with the authority to buy, will draw immense interest. It solves scads of IT and end-user problems. It also radically opens up your options for leveraging those apps, with customers, suppliers, marketing partners, the new world of EC, etc.
As to the dearth of database licenses (as opposed to apps), it seems that neither Informix nor Oracle is witnessing a "dead" mktplace there. Dynamic web sites and EC all require scalable DBMS's. This area has nowhere to go but up. In addition, although BVS, OMKT and others get attention for what they are creating on the EC side of the net, a firm w/the product line-up AND THE CUSTOMER BASE of ORCL really has the upper hand here.
I can see returns to sales and earnings growth of 35% +, especially due to the needs and benefits of web & EC customers. Does anyone see this differently? Who, outside of IBM, is competing as fully in this space? I wish NSCP did but their sales augur poorly for their future effectiveness.
last question: I seem to see an awful lot of recently departed ORCL in press releases for other firms. What is going on here. Is ORCL losing good talent or cleaning house? |
