With Takeover Completed, Oracle Sends Layoff Notices

[Robert Oak]

<snip>
One week after completing its contentious takeover of PeopleSoft, Oracle on Friday began sending layoff notices to some of the 11,700 employees working at its former rival.

Oracle said in a five-paragraph statement, released after the market closed, that it was laying off 5,000 employees, or nearly 10 percent of the combined Oracle-PeopleSoft work force.
</snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/15/technology/15oracle.html?oref=login


this was a very hostile takeover, so here's the ratio of Oracle
toasting the peoplesoft employees:

5000/11700 = 43%

43% just lost their job. Please add Oracle to your very long list
of evil, twisted and "not even logical for long term profits" multinational corporations.

[President Kerry]

1. Sorry, but this is the cruel world of M&A.

Outsourcing has toasted MILLIONS of jobs, so this takeover is nothing compared to the economic policies of this administration.

[Robert Oak]

3. yes, but why this one is pathetic

Oracle couldn't make the product...Peoplesoft could and why
they succeeded.

So they layoff the people who are competent who can make the product.

Think the FBI would consider grabbing these people to fix
their 170M and probably hitting 500M virtual file database disaster
from contracting with outsourcing SAIC?

NO way.

It's like the competent and able are punished for their ability
in our "new economy" where the dollar plunges and the US
gives it's technology, intellectual property and jobs to 3rd world
nations.

[VegasWolf]

5. I guess Oracle's incompetence is the reason THEY took over PeopleSoft.

PeopleSoft couldn't even compete with SAP.

[sweetheart]

33. The competent are a threat

As these "service" organizations charge by the person-hour and not
by the IPR value added, a super brilliant person is able to outperform
disproportionately the billing-standard and must be fired.

I learned this by demonstrating in 15 minutes in front of a client, that
i could do what another contrator was chargeing 2 weeks of billable
"senior" programmer time. I got the contractor sued for negligence
and merely made an enemy.

Sadly, our system promotes incompetence, and the free market mantra is
to look mediocre, and fit in your pidgeon hole.

[VegasWolf]

4. Absolutely right!

[bpilgrim]

6. what are you sorry for?

did you just get the boot or are you carrying the ax

peace

[TahitiNut]

20. That's the ENTJ "sorry" not the ENFP "sorry"

:evilgrin:

[okieinpain]

2. I saw a article on the nut case owners house. he needs the needle

too.

[ret5hd]

7. isn't the ceo of oracle...

the guy who wanted to supply the gov't the software to "manage'' a national id card system?

[VegasWolf]

8. Yes so? IBM and Sybase would be competing also.n/t

[bpilgrim]

15. that's the problem

most of the players are in on it.

peace

[VegasWolf]

17. True, there aren't any other players left. Informix is history. n/t

[ret5hd]

24. As i remember he offered them the software for FREE...

how ya gonna put in a bid lower than that?

he was gonna make his money administering the system.

[VegasWolf]

30. You remember correctly. n/t

[olddad56]

42. I think Sybase has been done for a long time.

[Tinoire]

9. Yep. A really nasty person

"It's not sufficient that I succeed; everyone else must fail."

(snip)

Then there's the other side of Ellison, the self- absorbed leader who has systematically purged Oracle of nearly all the executives who helped him turn around the company in the early 1990s and build it into today's behemoth.

That's the Ellison who decided to make a hostile bid for PeopleSoft, an important rival in the business applications business run by one of those deposed Oracle executives, Craig Conway. Conway was livid, describing Ellison's move as "diabolical" and "straight out of Genghis Khan." Ellison wasn't particularly interested in PeopleSoft's employees, most of whom he reportedly planned to jettison, nor in its product. It was a market share play, pure and simple.

PeopleSoft's customers would be coaxed/coerced to move to Oracle's e-business suite. At an analysts meeting, Ellison tossed off one of those joking ad-libs that make his public relations staff cringe. He said that Conway was so incensed he "thought I was going to shoot his dog." If Conway and the dog "were standing next to each other and I had one bullet, it wouldn't be for the dog."

(snip)

November 01, 2003

The Trouble With Larry
By Karen Southwick

http://www.technologymarketing.com/mc/content/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2030374

[Robert Oak]

11. don't forget his mandatory "perks" ; fucking a colleague

Notorious for requiring large breasted women (whom he hires)
to fuck him too.

Hired a series of women (who really were not dumb either) but
"playboy bunny" bodies...

so of course instead of obtaining any real power or position of authority, these women's advancement up on the corporate ladder
was seemingly dependent upon who they were bedding at the time.

Fairly amazing for it's blatant sexual harassment or something...

he wines and dines them and of course they fuck him, thinking
maybe some real stuff...then he dumps them, demotes them and fires them.

Stories were out in the 90's yet of course nothing happened.

And yes of course since this was his MO, the other executives and keep going down the corporate ladder believed this behavior was perfectly acceptable.

A complete moral cesspool.

He's such a sociopath he should be in maximum security prison
yet of course...

these the the guys who are know rewarded in our society

white collar sociopaths.

[Tinoire]

23. Urgh. Was not aware of that. Yuck. Silicon Valley despised him

Urgh... what a joke.

[TahitiNut]

36. Yup. Larry Ellison. Egotistical prick.

A real asshole.

[olddad56]

43. Read, "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison"...

subtitled, "God doesn't think he is Larry Ellison".

I have worked with Oracle Software since before it actually worked. I've never worked for the company.

I have experienced, from a client DBA's perspective all of the shenanigans that Oracle would pull in the olden days. And still pull.

I have listened to Ellison tell 10,00 people in a keynote address that he was a close friend of Rupert Murdoch.

Oracle was also on the list of corporations that donated over $100,000 to the coronation of Emperor Dubya.

Sleazy man, sleazy corporation, especially their consulting services branch.

[ret5hd]

44. hasn't he also stated that americans...

should give up on the idea of privacy, that it is a quant remnant of days gone by?

[TahitiNut]

47. I was doing beta testing and development work ...

... way back when they were almost a throwaway piece of software and afterwards. (Buggy beyond belief, but it was just after the deBased days.) I've known dozens of Oracle employees (and former) over the years, and the company has really come off as gruesome. They've had some small hidden pockets of "untouchables" whose corporate foxholes were off on the boundaries and deep enough to escape much of the continual carnage, but those were rare. They're truly predatory, both inside and outside. Yes, especially their "consulting services."

[pennylane100]

10. My husband is a peoplesoft employee

and he is waiting for his letter that is supposed to come UPS today.

We are somewhat luckier than many of the peoplesoft employees as he was going to retire in a few years anyway but its still a lousy way to handle the buyout.

[Merlin]

12. Another indication that the Era of Software has ended.

Oh, it'll still be needed, and there'll still be programmers. But aside from building web pages, the bulk of the software that'll still be in use 50 or 100 years from now has already been written.

[VegasWolf]

14. They've said that every five years since the 60's. I remember a

colleague at IBM research who said in the late 70's that
all interesting research in comp sci was finished and there
should be no more comp sci phd's.

[sweetheart]

35. And in a way it has become true

Sybase, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle are the only companies in the world
in the relational database market, and there is NO innovation due to
institutional market collusion.

OO databasese never took off, and the "creative destruction" that all
the bullshit business books talk about has not actuall occurred, rather
its a race to the bottom, where user interface systems that were
significantly more powerful than windows (X & variants) were commerically
ditched for the lowest common denominator.

Even Sun micro is now giving away PC solaris.. and all of them are moving
towards the "solutions" businesses, where software alone is not
respected.

I got offered a contract to go to india and train a lot of master
programmers in financial system architecture so that they could maximize
their labour value by selling them back to western nations... i told
them i'd only do it for a percentage.

We've seen no major innovation in databases, UI's or communications
subsystesm for over 10 years... everything used was done before...
i can't help but agree with your collegue.

Sure the processors are faster, but thats about it.

[w4rma]

13. This was done to kill off competition, not to enhance their product

or create a new product, or sell one or more of the PeopleSoft products. pro-monopoly.

PeopleSoft software will begin to be discontinued, now. Oracle software will begin to rise in price, now.

Oracle has become a parasite.

[VegasWolf]

18. Sure it was, just like Carly's takeover of Compaq. American corporations

are the greediest on the planet.

[w4rma]

21. See post #9

…
Then there's the other side of Ellison, the self- absorbed leader who has systematically purged Oracle of nearly all the executives who helped him turn around the company in the early 1990s and build it into today's behemoth.

That's the Ellison who decided to make a hostile bid for PeopleSoft, an important rival in the business applications business run by one of those deposed Oracle executives, Craig Conway. Conway was livid, describing Ellison's move as "diabolical" and "straight out of Genghis Khan." Ellison wasn't particularly interested in PeopleSoft's employees, most of whom he reportedly planned to jettison, nor in its product. It was a market share play, pure and simple.
…
http://www.technologymarketing.com/mc/content/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2030374

[VegasWolf]

28. I know Ellison personally and I know his corporation, I worked

there for a period. They treat their employee's well for
a Silicion Valley firm.

[w4rma]

41. Sounds like you are letting your personal feelings for the man outweigh

objective analysis.

[VegasWolf]

16. One thing about Ellision is that they take care of their employees.

[w4rma]

19. Sarcasm? Or did these folks who are being laid off get a fantastic

retirement plan?

[VegasWolf]

26. I am talking about Oracle employees. PeopleSoft employees got

what Compaq employees got. The company being taken over
always gets screwed. American corporations are ruthless
and highly intelligent, but for an American corporation Oracle
does take care of its employees.

[AndyTiedye]

40. Not Always

> The company being taken over always gets screwed.

That depends on what company is doing the acquiring.

[TahitiNut]

38. Oracle employees are overworked and thrown out when they reach 30-35.

They're a personality cult ... doped up by marketing and burnt out before they're 40. They're one of the most ageist companies south of the city.

[deminflorida]

22. The thing that would turn Oracle's Hair White is the Open Source

Database, PostGRE SQL.

www.postgresql.org

"PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) based on POSTGRES, Version 4.2, developed at the University of California at Berkeley Computer Science Department. POSTGRES pioneered many concepts that only became available in some commercial database systems much later."

"PostgreSQL is an open-source descendant of this original Berkeley code. It supports SQL92 and SQL99 and offers many modern features:"

It will do everything Oracle can an it's Free!

[VegasWolf]

27. Postgres actually caved in and adopted SQL and they still completely

failed. Postgres's original relational calculus language
QUELL was actually far more sophisticated than SQL. Neither
Postgres nor OpenSQl or any other open-source database will
worry either IBM or Oracle, and these guy's have tried for years.
Big business will not put their trust in them.

[deminflorida]

31. Well I think your wrong about that. Especially since the migration

to open source is so easy now. Saving money is everything now days. If getting away from Vendor supported software saves money, big business is certainly interested.

European IT consultants are blazing paths in these areas.

[VegasWolf]

32. Competition from them was never economically important, our

competition was other large corporations. That's
where the money lay.

BTW, porting is never "easy" for large enterprises. All
the database companies made sure of that. That is why
DDL is so different and was never standardized.

[ixion]

34. I disagree with that

MySQL is excepted as an enterprise class database solution.

IBM and Oracle are concerned about open source, just like M$ is, because open source has the potential to make them obsolete.

[bpilgrim]

37. MySQL

The MySQL database server is the world's most popular open source database. Over five million installations use MySQL to power high-volume Web sites and other critical business systems — including industry-leaders like The Associated Press, Google, NASA, Sabre Holdings and Suzuki.

MySQL is an attractive alternative to higher-cost, more complex database technology. Its award-winning speed, scalability and reliability make it the right choice for corporate IT departments, Web developers and packaged software vendors.

more...
http://www.mysql.com


http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/awards

peace

[Fovea]

46. I like Firebird.

Based on the very small and very robust interbase engine.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[VegasWolf]

29. I know. Back when I was doing the corporate ladder it was kinda

fun playing the aggressive, ruthless and intelligent games.

[sweetheart]

39. We've all seen this coming

Firstly, oracle is arguing that this industry is now "mature" and to
grow in a mature industry segment, where customers have already
purchased their systems, is to buy competitors.

The competitors are SAP, Oracle(Peoplesoft(jdedwards)), IBM and MSFT
Microsoft acquired great plains and is threatening the market, as usual
from underneath with price points that drive the industial players
down market in to the trash software zone where bugs are us.

As the software in question, usually runs the chart of accounts across
various nations, changing such systems and re-training F&A (finance
and accounting) teams the world over, is very expensive, so rather
businesses are just looking to get the systems working and not keep
paying software companies to churn them on to their latest products.

I'm a partner in a small company that does peoplesoft consultancy, and
most of the skills base we sell, is far beyond peoplesoft, rather in
international accounting, transfer pricing best practice, and in
speaking most european languages. The software itself ain't worth
much without the ability to get every accounting department in every
nation in europe using it.

Sadly, peoplsoft had the most integrity in the market, and likely the
profits will now be towards undercutting oracle's migration prices
as they'll surely be looking to charge a bundle to shift peoplesoft
customers on to oracle financials.

oracle never was a very good product, but they've a VERY agressive
and viscous marketing and sales team that plays ugly. This news is
no suprise... as geez, its been over a year in the making and
alls over but the crying.

[Jack Rabbit]

45. Corprotism at its worst (and its most essential)

The welfare of the artificial person trumps the welfare of real people.