| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 525.1 | Care to Join me? | DPDMAI::DAVISGB | Gil Davis DTN 554-7245 | Tue Jan 02 1990 23:46 | 123 |
|
I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M
Date: 29-Dec-1989 12:12pm CST
From: GIL DAVIS
DAVIS.GIL
Dept: SCA Software Services
Tel No: (505)857-7245
TO: Toni Lee Rudnicki @MEL
Subject: RE: request for input RE: Oracle CMP Status
Toni,
In answer to your request for comment regarding the possibility of
Oracle Corporation becoming a CMP......
I am totally opposed to this type of action. It would be an
extremely counterproductive move on the part of Digital. There are
many reasons why.
1. THE KILLER COMPETITOR Oracle competes with Digital in a very
aggressive and unflattering way. Witness the advertising that they
place in the front cover of Digital review (December 11th issue for
example). Their advertising is not very exemplary of what I would
call a 'business partner', although Oracle regularly uses this term
when talking to customers about their relationship with Digital.
This is one of the reasons why the Gartner Group calls Oracle a
'Killer Competitor'. Oracle's president, Larry Ellison, has been
quoted in numerous publications with such comments as 'It's not
enough that we succeed, all others must fail'. Is this the type of
company we should be partnering with?
2. ORACLE UNDERCUTS DIGITAL PROFITS When we make a sale that
includes Oracle, we have just given away the most profitable portion
of the sale, the Software. You probably won't hear much from sales
about this possible agreement being a bad move. Regardless of
whether Oracle or Rdb were sold, sales representatives would still
make budget, but Digital as a corporation would realize lower profit
from the sale. If we sell our own products, then we retain the
profit, rather than giving it to Oracle.
3. NO IMPROVEMENT IN DIGITAL'S MARKETING POSITION If we were to
partner with Oracle, nothing would change in our ability to sell a
solution. Whether they are a CMP or not will make little difference
in the customer choosing Oracle and Digital. We can utilize Oracle's
product set if it becomes necessary to close a sale. All the
agreement would contribute would be in Oracle's behalf and to
Digital's detriment. Oracle would use the CMP status as an
gimmick on one advertising page while bashing Digital products on the
next.
4. LACK OF SUPPORT As was seen at DU:IT, most of the field Sales
Support and delivery consulting staff are opposed to partnering with
Oracle (they were all wearing 'NO-ORACLE' stickers on their badges).
It would be a slap in the face of those who are trying to promote
our own products if we were to endorse Oracle by making them a CMP.
We are actively competing against Oracle in the field, and winning.
Action such as making Oracle a CMP would send an extremely confusing
message to both field support and our customer base.
5. WRONG USE OF CMP STATUS The CMP program usually has members who
provide a component that Digital cannot, and therefore enhances our
marketing ability. Making ORACLE a cmp would be equivalent to
making SYSTEMS INDUSTRIES a CMP. In both cases, the 3rd party sells
a component that runs on a VAX and is in direct competition with
Digital. Have we partnered with Systems Industries as a CMP? No,
because doing so would not improve our selling ability. The same is
true for Oracle.
6. BENCHMARK TESTING? Digital has published a number of benchmark
reports over the past year. They were tests of various software and
hardware configurations, including ACMS and RDB. Interestingly
enough, there were no tests of competing database products such as
Oracle. The reason? Oracle has a clause in their license agreement
which prevents the user (in this case Digital) from revealing
performance information to third parties. The net effect is that we
can test Oracle all we want, but never publish the results.
With Oracle however, the rules are different. On page 2 of the
12/18/89 Issue of Digital Review is an ad for Oracle's latest
benchmark test that trumpets 'ORACLE certified over twice as fast as
Rdb'. Contrary to what we have heard from numerous customers about
performance limitations, what is revealed in the press is only what
Oracle chooses to be revealed. And they do it at the expense of
Digital products! Can you tell me if this type of negative
advertising will cease after we Oracle becomes our 'Cooperative
Marketing Partner'? I doubt it.
7. BUSINESS PRACTICE Oracle on numerous occasions has acted in
ways which I would not classify as representative of a 'business
partner'. One of the main reasons that we see people stay with
Oracle is the huge investment in the SQL*FORMS product in terms of
developed applications. Customers are also agonizing over the cost
or ORACLE licenses and maintenance, and the lack of standard software
practices such as Automatic Software Distribution for customers under
maintenance agreement (ORACLE has none).
Recently Oracle dropped their maintenance costs in an offer to retain
a customer (major Oil company) only AFTER there was serious
consideration to migrate to VAX Rdb/VMS. Although the customer had
numerous systems, both Digital and non-Digital, Oracle made the offer
for only the VAX systems running VMS. I have a copy of the letter
that Oracle wrote to the customer if you would like to see it.
There are numerous examples of they way Oracle deals with
customers which I would be happy to discuss with you in person.
Once again, I am totally opposed to signing any kind of marketing
agreement with Oracle Corporation. To do so, would be playing into
their hands, provide no additional benefit for Digital, and would be
extremely counterproductive. By the way, I keep hearing requests for
comment as to why we shouldn't. I still haven't heard a good
argument as to why we SHOULD sign an agreement with Oracle. What
benefit is there for Digital?
Regards,
Gil Davis
Software Consultant - Transaction Processing/Database
South Central Area Sales Support
Albuquerque, New Mexico
|
| 525.2 | Hollow threats don't count. | PHLACT::QUINN | | Wed Jan 03 1990 06:40 | 12 |
| Gil,
Sorry to burst whoever's bubble but, the argument that being a CMP
will, by the terms of the agreement, limit ORACLE's negative ads
doesn't flow. ORACLE ALREADY HAS BEEN A CMP ON ULTRIX. (Is this still
true.)
Secondly, unrealized threats (have we ever actually DUMPED a CMP,
publically?) merely reinforce negative behaviours.
thomas
|
| 525.3 | This must be stopped... | BRILLO::BIRCH | I think I think, therefore I might be | Wed Jan 03 1990 14:08 | 31 |
| My 2p worth (the currency's different over here)
Gil's arguments are right on the button.
1. We in the field work hard to try and promote our own products,
both to customers and to sales. Any formal agreement with Oracle
will confuse both these parties, and seriously weaken the credibility
of those who seek to maximise Digital's revenue, profit, and account
control in the database area.
2. Whatever the CMP agreement actually states, Oracle will use it
to increase their credibility with our customers; we know from bitter
experience that once Oracle are in one of our accounts, attempts
to divert the customer from VAX and VMS are not long in coming,
so ultimately Digital will not only lose the software sale, we'll
lose hardware and account control.
3. Oracle are unethical, devious and treacherous in my experience
(I've been on the receiving end of their behaviour a number of times).
This is not the kind of company Digital should be making relationships
of any kind with.
Sorry if I rambled a bit; but I am strongly against this proposition,
as I feel it will undo a great deal of work I and many others have
done over the last couple of years. It smacks to me of 'if you can't
beat them join them'. We can beat them; we don't need a non-aggression
pact with someone who won't honour it anyway.
PDB
|
| 525.4 | Mr Saviers agreed then...? | BRILLO::BIRCH | I think I think, therefore I might be | Wed Jan 03 1990 14:50 | 53 |
| Whatever happened about this? It suggests Mr Saviers would not wish
to see us in bed with Oracle...
Regards
From: NAME: Grant Saviers
FUNC: Storage & Info. Mgmt.
TEL: 223-9765 <SAVIERS.GRANT AT A1 at CORA @
CORE>
Date: 27-Sep-1989
Posted-date: 28-Sep-1989
Precedence: 1
Subject: ORACLE STRATEGY
To: See Below
CC: See Below
I have met with Oracle's Senior Management with the objective of
establishing a more productive relationship between our two companies.
Oracle's longer term strategy appears to be aimed at becoming a
primary enterprise integrator by leveraging from the Database. Our
objective is to get them to support NAS with their applications and to
be a publicly constructive partner with Digital.
Oracle is experienced in dealing with Digital as a customer, and
competitor. They are exploiting every opportunity worldwide to get an
agreement (CMP, distribution, etc.) with Digital that they can exploit
to their advantage in the market and media. We should adhere to the
following strategy until we reach conclusion of the current discussion
(hopefully by the end of Q2):
1. Compete vigorously with Oracle for all DB sales.
2. "Do what is right" for our customers already committed to
Oracle. Site by site this might range from working with Oracle
to insure the customer succeeds to the other extreme of
"unhooking" Oracle where they can not do the job, such as in
clusters.
3. Avoid general explicit or tacit relationships with them - e.g.
recommending Oracle on UNIX, entering into any CMP or
distribution agreements, etc.
It would be helpful to our negotiations if your organizations followed
this strategy. Please let me know if there are problems supporting
it or if you have any input that might help our discussions with
Oracle's management.
|
| 525.5 | not a CMP, I think | FENNEL::SILVERBERG | | Wed Jan 03 1990 16:22 | 7 |
| I do not believe ORACLE is a CMP as stated here. I believe they are
a participant in the DDS program, as are most of our other 3rd
parties who have similar products on our platforms. If anyone knows
differently, please advise.
Thanx
Mark
|
| 525.6 | $0.02 | AUNTB::GETTYSBI | Bill Gettys @RTP | Wed Jan 03 1990 18:41 | 41 |
| I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M
Date: 27-Dec-1989 02:44pm EST
From: Bill Gettys @CEO
GETTYS.BILL
Dept: Software Services
Tel No: 704.357.5376
TO: BOURDEAU ( BOURDEAU@CIMNET@MRGATE@GENDEL@MRO )
Subject: RE: request for input RE: Oracle CMP Status
Oracle is a very real threat to Digital in many of our accounts.
There are numerous documented cases of Oracle recommending that their
customers change to a different vendor's hardware, but keep their
Oracle software. Their knee-jerk response to any performance
complaints is to blame Digital's hardware and suggest a change. In
their user publication two years ago, they suggested that their users
could get better price/performance by replacing VAXes with H-P
machines. At one of the largest VAX sites in the Carolinas, Oracle is
recommending that the customer buy a Sequent in place of the VAX 9000
we are proposing. (The VP of MIS spoke at the 9000 announcement.
Wouldn't it be painful if these folks decided they didn't need a 9000
after all?)
Before the sale, they sing a different song: They tell their
customers that they have a strong, high level relationship with
Digital. If we enter into a CMP arrangement with them for
manufacturing software, they will use that agreement as evidence of
our endorsement of their database engine. It doesn't matter that it
isn't true. These people are all former used car salesmen and
representing facts honestly and completely isn't high on their agenda.
Some of my customers see through this junk. Most don't.
A CMP agreement with Oracle will cost Digital many millions of
dollars.
Bill Gettys
SWS - Sales Support
Carolinas District
|
| 525.7 | balance is important for a healthy life | FENNEL::SILVERBERG | | Wed Jan 03 1990 23:14 | 57 |
|
On the other hand.....
If Digital and ORACLE were ever to reach a point of CMP participation,
it would probably be in the FABS application market on ULTRIX. It
does not appear to be viable under VMS, nor in the data management
market given the Rdb situation. In addition, I don't see any chance
of CIM Marketing looking for their MRPII products, nor our Office
Marketing folks looking at their mail, etc. products. However, a
possible CMP agreement with ORACLE in the FABS Open Systems market
is a very long shot at this point, so any discussion is conjecture
and pure speculation.
ORACLE has stated that their goal is not necessarily a CMP agreement
in the FABS market, but a good working relationship which encompasses
marketing, sales, and technical support in the Open Systems Market.
This is the fastest growing portion of our market, and will be very
important for the future.
My view is that although ORACLE certainly owns most of the blame for
the current situation, Digital has probably contributed its share.
We are doing our best to foster a hostile environment, hoping that
ORACLE will go away. Well, it will be interesting to see how long
they last. Obviously, we will outlast them in the long run, but how
long & how costly would it be?
I feel that if Digital spent some time & effort to build a better
relationship, some, or many of the issues would be minimized, or
perhaps eliminated. ORACLE, like most 3rd party software vendors,
tends to work with hardware vendors who work with them, and they
tend to promote those hardware environments which respond in kind.
I always am amazed how ORACLE can leverage perhaps more Digital
hardware, software & service revenue than any other 3rd party in
the market, and yet we spend most of our energy, time and money
on beating them to a pulp. ORACLE will be a $1B software vendor
in a year or so. It will not be easy to ignore their presence
and strength in the market. If they leverage $500M total in
hardware, sw & svce for system vendors, how much of that do we want
to be Digital? Remember, for every dollar we push away, HP,
Sequent, Tandem, IBM, Ncube etal get. Perhaps we need to be
sure who the competition is...IBM, HP etal or ORACLE?
So, let's spend our energy solving the problem, and not spend our
energy on beating up on someone who wants to work with us to insure
we are both successful against IBM. Let's try to solve the technical,
sales, marketing, and working relationship problems instead of fanning
the fires of discontent. I don't think we need to impress anyone
else that we have an acute problem..we already understand the issues.
Not working with ORACLE will not solve the problem; it will only cause
us to focus our energy on them as a competitor, and as such will cause
us to take some energy away from the real enemy, IBM.
Mark
|
| 525.8 | Uh...are you SURE of their motives in the long run? | DPDMAI::DAVISGB | Gil Davis DTN 554-7245 | Thu Jan 04 1990 02:42 | 14 |
| Mark, you present some good points except...
"..we are both successful against IBM."
How can we work towards mutual success when their CEO makes statements
like "it's not enough that we succeed, everyone else must fail."
??
I have asked some of those who have responded to Toni's survey If I
could post their responses here....two more follow this note..
Gil
|
| 525.9 | $.02 more | DPDMAI::DAVISGB | Gil Davis DTN 554-7245 | Thu Jan 04 1990 02:43 | 29 |
|
I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M
Date: 02-Jan-1990 10:17am CST
From: JEANRENE NICOLET @WNO
NICOLET.JEANRENE AT A1 at CGOO01 at CGO
Dept: SOFTWARE SERVICES
Tel No:
TO: See Below
Subject: RE: request for input RE: Oracle CMP Status
Hello and Happy New Year !
I strongly agree that any close relationship with Oracle (short of
buying them out...) would we a disaster for Digital for all the
reasons listed and many more (see other responses to the request).
Oracle is just like St Petersburg on one of Kathrin of Russia's
visits: nicely painted fake streets with nothing behind them. Worse,
there are troops hidden with guns pointed at us !
DON'T DO IT !!!! PLEASE !!!
Jean-Rene
Distribution: (deleted...)
|
| 525.10 | More responses... | DPDMAI::DAVISGB | Gil Davis DTN 554-7245 | Thu Jan 04 1990 02:45 | 52 |
|
I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M
Date: 02-Jan-1990 09:48am CST
From: DENNIS ROUTLEDGE @NYO
ROUTLEDGE.DENNIS AT A1 at HOCUS at PCO
Dept:
Tel No: 212-856-3073
TO: See Below
Subject: RE: Oracle as a CMP ... Just say NO !!!
The situation with ORACLE to me, seems fairly straight forward. From a
competitive point-of-view ORACLE is the a 'compromise' for a database system if
you are running over a wide variety of Digital competitors's hardware. Every
enhancement ORACLE develops is the least common denominator for a wide variety
of hardware which ORACLE does not sell. Differences in machine architecture and
performance benefits of a particular architecture are negated. ORACLE positions
the platform that their software runs on as a commodity
From Digital's prospective selling ORACLE over RDB is at best short
sighted for several reasons:
1. Decision to purchase a database system is not made every year by a
corporation. The decision 'locks' a corporation into a commitment that is long
term(5 years or more due to cost). The vendor of the database system has
tremendous leverage in influencing future software and hardware purchase
decisions. ORACLE has no real reason to push Digital hardware over a competitor
since they are selling software at a significant cost.
2. If Digital sells ORACLE as part of a solution and ORACLE for what
ever reason does not meet expectations. Digital is part of the problem not the
solution. Better to sell the devil you know than the devil you have no control
over.
3. The fact that when you buy Digital you buy the complete line of
Digitial software and hardware solutions and architectures and long term
commitment to cost effective computing power should effectively in sales
situation negate ORACLE marketing 'noise'.
4. I have worked at Digital for 3 months so far. I have been for 18
years an 'abuser' of Digital and IBM services. I have extensive experience with
Digital's Codasyl database, DB2 and Datacom DB. Bottom line in any database
decision is cost of development, maintenance costs and cost of recovery from
database problems. Digital has resources to address the above problems!!
Dennis Routledge DTN 352-3073
Distribution: (deleted...)
|
| 525.11 | More than a provider of RDBMS | ZPOV03::JEFFREYCHOY | Hardly trained | Thu Jan 04 1990 08:20 | 32 |
|
Hello,
I just want to say that Oracle latest marketing strategy is not just
talking about a portable RDBMS for multiple hardwares but with their
latest MANUFACTURING software package, they are now starting to put emphasis
on application portability. This is far more formidable than just being
a provider for RDBMS. Oracle now can position themselves as a provider
of solution.
To a MIS manager it would mean that he has much job
mobility and personnal value in terms of possesing a skill set that he
can be employed in many places with different hardwares. To the
management of a company, investing on an Oracle solution would mean
an end to future upgrading problems and it also deemed to be good
investment decision.
Once customer decided to purchase an Oracle solution, it would be
unlikely that customer would want a change after some years of
operation. Nobody is mad enough to upset a working production system,
be it an MRP or insurance system if all they need is to upgrade to a
bigger box. In this respect the customer has switch from being hardware
dependent to software dependent.
Do we still want to have Oracle as a CMP ??
Best Regards, Jeffrey
|
| 525.12 | Competition made America great | CISM::MORAN | When Money Speaks The Truth is? | Thu Jan 04 1990 19:31 | 27 |
| I'm sure everyone can agree to the general statement that competition
is healthy in a free market. However, in reading several notes
in this file, I get the impression that we have NIMBY's (Not In My
Back Yard) when in comes to competition with Oracle. First off
I agree that Oracle is a thorn in the side of anyone measured on
RDB sales (by the way are any salespeople measure on RDB #'s?).
I'll also agree that it is far more preferable to have RDB win than
Oracle but this Oracle bashing is IMO counterproductive. If some
of our competitiors had the same attitude we would not be buying
tape drives from IBM? Or chips from Intel?
If it was not for Oracle- RDB would not be as successful - think
about that! When our customers needed a database what did we have
- ZIP. So now that we have a competitive (actually better on VMS)
product we scream that Oracle is no good, unfair, terrible liars.
Digital is a big company and if senior management feels that the
database is important then they should put measurements and resources
in place to support that belief.
Should we make them a CMP - in the UNIX financials space YES -
(remember folks like our earlier history we have nothing there and
we make no margin on competitors hardware)
Should we make them a CMP when we have a competitive product NO.
I would like Digital to take an equity position in Oracle just to
protect our installed base.
|
| 525.13 | My $.03 | DPDMAI::DAVISGB | Gil Davis DTN 554-7245 | Thu Jan 04 1990 21:36 | 110 |
| Re .12
>(by the way are any salespeople measure on RDB #'s?).
Not that I know of,. Therein lies part of our (Digital's) problem. The
salesperson is goaled with a $$ budget. For the most part is doesn't
matter what the sales looks like, only that it equates to a certain
total amount by year (quarter/month) end. In our case (US) having the
Oracle sales rep help out by selling the software (Database,
application etc) eats up the biggest profit maker in the sale (The
software). In Canada they DOhave sales people measured on RDB sales (I
met one at DU:IT).
>I'll also agree that it is far more preferable to have RDB win than
>Oracle but this Oracle bashing is IMO counterproductive.
I think a lot of us are extremely frustrated with this point. Why is
one called an 'Oracle-basher' for bringing up competitive information
and relating real-life experiences from sales situations while the
Rdb-Bashing we endure in Digital Review is called 'advertising' or at
worst 'negative advertising'?
>If some of our competitiors had the same attitude we would not be buying
>tape drives from IBM? Or chips from Intel?
Or disks from Systems Industries? Or memory from Emulex?
>If it was not for Oracle- RDB would not be as successful - think
>about that!
Agreed that Oracle was the first to bring SQL to market (even before
IBM), but how is Oracle responsible for Rdb's success?
> When our customers needed a database what did we have
>- ZIP. So now that we have a competitive (actually better on VMS)
>product we scream that Oracle is no good, unfair, terrible liars.
Ingres has a reasonable market share on VMS, and is a good company to
do business with. I don;t see a lot of Ingres-bashing going on. The
difference is our experience in how Oracle competes, treats our
cstomers, and bashes us in the press. It's interesting that the other
database vendors pretty much don't negatively advertise against Digital
products and are all pitted against Oracle in THEIR advertising. (Like
Ingres with the Blah Blah ad).
>Digital is a big company and if senior management feels that the
>database is important then they should put measurements and resources
>in place to support that belief.
Some geographies have done this (notably GIA, with much success).
Unfortunately there is a move afoot to give Oracle some preferred
status (such as CMP). From what we have seen, Oracle probably won't
use this status in the way it was intended. Specifically they will will
resort to 'Why buy Rdb, when Digital THEMSELVES has endorsed us as a
Cooperative Marketing Partner. If we weren't the best, why would they
partner with us?'
Also, you hit the nail on the head in stating that 'Digital is a BIG
company'. Big companies have lots of issues and it's EXTREMELY hard
for one to surface and get attention. Witness the meeting I had with a
group from EDS. We had 4 hours to sell them on Digital in terms of
networking, database, OLTP, VAX, PCSA, everything...one shot. They had
to leave at 1:00. Why were they leaving? Because they were spending
the afternoon with a DATABASE COMPETITOR. We have many options and
solutions to bring to the table. One of them is Database Management.
Oracle has ONE area of selling to pound on. Who's going to win the
database? The one who is most in the customers mind. (By the way, we
did manage to whet their appetite enough so thay they came back for
more at a later date.)
Digital is a company that believes in survival of the fittest (in terms
of product development) and letting the products sell themselves (based
upon functionality, rather than marketing effort). Unfortunately, lots
of customers are barraged with Oracle advertising which sets the stage
and forces us to address THEIR issues.
>Should we make them a CMP - in the UNIX financials space YES -
>(remember folks like our earlier history we have nothing there and
>we make no margin on competitors hardware)
Do you think Oracle will segregate this in their advertising? The same
ads that bash RDB will have the "Cooperative Marketing Partner" logo
appearing down in the corner. Oracle salesreps will use it as a
leverage. I understand that there is a lack of software in the
Unix/Ultrix financials space, but why provide this endorsement for
Oracle? WHAT BENEFIT IS THERE FOR DIGITAL THAT OUTWEIGHS THE NEGATIVE
IMPACT UPON OUR OWN PRODUCTS?
>Should we make them a CMP when we have a competitive product NO.
We may fools ourselves into believing that they are only a CMP for
financials, but Oracle will use this information across the board (how
will that impact Ross Systems, who sell financials on VMS?
>I would like Digital to take an equity position in Oracle just to
>protect our installed base.
Does this equate with CMP status or are you saying we should buy a
chunk of stock? And would this change they way they do business?
I understand how there are some within Digital who's job it is to
cultivate and nurture relationships on the Unix/Ultrix platform, but I
have maintained all along, when we have a competitive product we
should not be forming alliances with any particular vendor. VAX
Rdb/VMS is a competitive product, and based upon past experience,
Oracle will (regardless of how much we attempt to 'bound' them with
the agreement) use CMP status to our detriment.
By the way, don't consider me a VMS or Rdb bigot. I'm consulting on a
sale in Texas which is all Unix...
|
| 525.14 | From the heartland ... | MAIL::DUNCANG | Gerry Duncan @KCO | Fri Jan 05 1990 05:19 | 133 |
|
I N T E R O F F I C E M E M O R A N D U M
Date: 28-Dec-1989 05:25pm CDT
From: Gerry Duncan @KCO
DUNCAN.GERRY
Dept: Sales Support
Tel No: DTN:452-3445
TO: See Below
Subject: Oracle as a CMP ... Just say NO !!!
Toni,
I encourage you to "just say NO" to making Oracle ANY kind of marketing
partner for ANY reason. Oracle's "way" of doing business is very
different that Digital's way of doing business. They lie to customers
about us, berate our products, and blame us for their problems.
Partners in any kind of business venture usually have many traits in
common. It is a pleasure to work with Focus, Smartstar, and Ross
professionals for they are interested in working WITH us to provide
solutions. No matter what Oracle is whispering in your ear, they are not
interested in working WITH us AFTER getting in the customer's door. They
just want to use us !
I have been involved with numerous Oracle projects, meetings, and
conferences. Some of the things that happened and were said by the Oracle
people are detailed below and were, frankly, unbelieveable. You know how
it goes, you're having a decent meeting and then the Oracle guy opens his
mouth and you can't believe it ... like your worst experience ever.
Believe me, IF you partner with Oracle you'll get to spend all your extra
time trying to keep your hand over the Oracle saleman's mouth so he can't
encourage your valued DEC customer to use PCs for development, Sequent for
transaction processing, and MacIntosh for executive/end-user processing.
And, oh by the way, if your customer wants to connect to an IBM host,
Oracle will be more than happy to help them buy and Interlink box instead
of our SNA gateway. And, oh, by the way, if you and your customer have
been accustomed to using cluster technology to provide long-term planning,
you can kiss that goodbye since Oracle V6 doesn't run in a cluster so there
goes a key piece of our uniqueness right out the door. And then you'll get
to hear your customer tell you he can't upgrade his VAX (even though he
needs and wants to) because he can't afford the Oracle license fees.
If you "... just say yes ..." NOW, you can "... just say no more ..." to
account control. Oracle doesn't give a damn about our workstations,
Digital, or anyone else and don't you ever believe they do.
Even if the customer doesn't want it, Oracle's strategy is to CREATE a
multi-vendor, multi-network environment such that ONLY Oracle can provide
the systems integration, consulting, and network management.
If you "... just say yes ..." NOW, you'll get to hear these kinds of
statements from Oracle that I have heard in the last year in the presense
of important customers:
- "...we used to develop our database on VAX, but we've moved to Sun and
Sequent since they're so much faster ..."
- "... the problem with Oracle in a VAXcluster is not really Oracle's
problem .... it's the VMS lock manager ... in fact, we're going to write
our own lock manager .."
- "... our interconnect to DB2 uses the Interlink box because your SNA
gateway runs soooo slow ..."
- "... we traded in those old/slow 8840's we bought and MADE Digitial give
us 62xx systems .... they're a lot faster that the 8840 because the 8840
has that old/slow bus ..."
- "... well, if that 8840 isn't fast enough, maybe we better look at a
Sequent ... it's real fast and, of course, Oracle is optimized for the
parallel processor ... we're thinking about doing the same work on the
VAX version"
- "... we support DECnet but, in all honesty, TCP/TP is a lot faster .."
- ".... you'll need all the latest features from Oracle Financials. Since
the financials are developed on Sequent, you should consider Sequent for
the financials. Oh sure, you'll be able to get the same enhancements on
VAX, but it takes time to port the financials from Sequent to the other
environments."
Finally, you should be aware that there are many Digital customers who
"standardized" on Oracle who are looking to get rid of Oracle FOR ANYTHING
ELSE because the license fees are killing their budgets AND poor performance
is killing their VAXes. With no money to buy VAXes, the customer has no
choice but to buy Sequent or other "hot" boxes. Oracle has their license
fees set such that the Oracle database on just about any VAX you pick IS
MORE THAN THE HARDWARE.
I have one customer where we lost the sale of a 6000-420 to Sequent because
the customer had Oracle financials because they had Oracle database. We
did, however, win the sale of several other 6000-4xx systems BUT ONLY after
discounting 30-35% in order to be competitive with Sequent who was cheaper
AND was low-balling. Here's at least one explanation of our margin woes.
The sad part of this particular event was that Oracle got a po for over
$600k. Money the customer could (and should) have spent with us, over
time. So, when you consider the the discount amount when combined with the
Oracle license fees, we left a significant amount of money on the table.
Toni, we in the field keep hearing that you are taking these suggestions
to the top. The problem is, you never tell us WHO you are taking them to.
I'm just about fed up with this "Oracle as a CMP" crap. If you are one of
those annoited ones who sits on high and thinks this is such a good deal
for Digital, why don't you:
1) send a mail message to the 46 end user sales district managers and ask
them how they like losing to Oracle and their various hardware partners
(Sequent, Pyramid, HP et al) and ask them how they like heavy discounting
2) Send a mail message to the sales support managers and ask them how much
time their database or OLTP specialists spend combating Oracle's unethical
fact sheets and lies about our products.
3) come work in the field .... not the way it was in the past (if you are
from the field) ... but the way it is NOW
Attached is a copy of the memo that Don Bell-Irving wrote to a number of
Digital executives which describes another view of why partnering with
Oracle is bad.
Look, I've got an answer for you and your metrics. You can escape this
lifetime embarassment by coming to work in my unit since we have an opening.
That way you won't have to live with the idea you sold out and did not do
what was right for Digital AND the customer.
Best regards,
Gerry
|
| 525.15 | Source of the number? | SQLRUS::BOOTH | What am I?...An Oracle? | Fri Jan 05 1990 22:25 | 8 |
| .7 references an interesting number. That number is the "$500 M" of
Digital sales that is "leveraged" by Oracle. How was that measured? Is
that the number Oracle claims? Do they count the VAX sold by Digital
where Oracle then walked in and sold the database? I can't imagine that
Oracle drives that much revenue for Digital.
---- Michael Booth
|
| 525.16 | What's wrong with ORACLE | COOKIE::BERENSON | Words are a deadly weapon | Fri Jan 05 1990 22:39 | 119 |
| Competition IS healthy, and I sure don't mind competing with ORACLE. What I
mind is a company which decides to STIFLE competition by stabbing its own
product in the back. What exactly do I mean? Well, to be a competitor you
need a number of things:
1) You need a competitive product. We've got one, and the effort to continue
to maintain a competitive position goes on.
2) You need support. This is particularly true in the primary markets for
database systems. We have some strengths, and some weaknesses here. Below
I'll explain what this has to do with my central theme.
3) You need marketing. Digital has a very fragmented approach to marketing.
Basically, we give the group responsible for a particular product a small
stipend to let them prepare some literature, etc. But the real marketing
dollars go into industry and application marketing groups. How this impacts
the central theme comes later...
4) You need sales. Someone has to be out their getting the customer to buy.
Further explanation below.
Now, each of our software competitors has all 4 of the above, and in spades.
In particular, they have massive marketing budgets FOR THEIR PRODUCT and a
dedicated sales force. When ORACLE and INGRES go at it, they fight on all
four of the above planes.
What about Digital? Well, Digital is strong in having product and (once the
product is successful) strong in support. But, we don't do very well in
marketing or sales. One of the major reasons is that we fail to line up
marketing and sales behind a product and fragment our efforts between our own
product's and 3rd party "competitors". The corporate business model assumes
that Rdb/VMS (or any product) will get adequate marketing because each
industry (and application and channel) marketing group will be pushing it as
part of its product set, therefore we don't need a massive product marketing
effort. But, what is reality?
CSG ends up pushing Cullinet, IBI/FOCUS, etc. more than Rdb/VMS because they
want to get into the datacenters already using those products on IBM
CIM ends up pushing CINCOM's database more than Rdb/VMS because CINCOM's
MRP package is a winner and it happens to require their database system
FABS ends up pushing ORACLE because they have the best Open Systems Financial
package.
FSG ends up pushing SYBASE because they have a secure database product
etc.
None of these marketing groups gets MEASURED on the marketing of Rdb/VMS,
so the corporate assumption that we don't need massive product marketing
is invalid. Another way of looking at this is that at ORACLE or INGRES, every
dollar spent on engineering is matched by a dollar (or two or three or) spent
on marketing (of ORACLE or INGRES). On some global level, for every dollar
Digital spends on engineering Rdb/VMS it also allocates a dollar (or...) for
marketing. BUT, 10 cents goes to market SYBASE, another 20 cents goes to
market ORACLE, etc.
This lack of focus at the marketing level combined with the lack of a
measurement system at the field level combine to dilute the sales effort.
Sales Reps have little incentive to really SELL against ORACLE, INGRES, etc.
The marketing groups aren't telling them this is essential and the company
isn't measuring them on it, so following the path of least resistance is
the course of choice. Sure, selling Rdb/VMS helps them meet their budget
with its relatively large price tag and associated service. But, without
the strong marketing support behind them and with ORACLE et al willing
to devote substantial sales and marketing effort AS EITHER A PARTNER OR
COMPETITOR, the SALES REP's margin on an Rdb/VMS sale may be very low!
What does a CMP agreement mean? Well, one thing it means is that we ENCOURAGE
our sales force to bring in the third party. In fact, we reward them for
selling the CMP product while at the same time making it easy for them to get
help. In other words, we improve their personal margins. At the same time
the CMP agreement causes the Digital marketing group to provide some marketing
support for the CMP, FURTHER DILUTING THE EFFORT ON Rdb/VMS!
Now, why is this bad. Well, the CORPORATION has made a decision that Database
is a key technology for our future. We must be at roughly an industry
leadership position in order to survive the 90s. We are investing engineering
dollars to ensure that we have the products and the people expertise. But, like
all things, the company is always watching the bottom line. They want to
see a return (and a short-term return at that) on their investment. Well,
if the marketing and sales effort isn't in place then the return will
never be what it should. The database market is THE MOST COMPETITIVE software
market, yet Digital is playing without a significant marketing investment.
When a marketing group endorses a 3rd party database competitor for a
particular niche, it stifles Rdb/VMS' ability to compete. When we fail to
give our salesreps the backup they need to sell, we stifle Rdb/VMS' ability to
compete. When we fail to give them quotas for Rdb/VMS sales (or dedicate
sales resources), it stifles Rdb/VMS' ability to compete.
Why is ORACLE so bad? Well, first because they play the game at a different
level of ethics than the rest of us. Secondly, because they have the marketing
clout we refuse to give Rdb/VMS. The combination of factors says that they
will help you make a sale one moment and stab you in the back the next. It
says, that nothing short of making them our primary database product will
satisfy them. It says, that they (ALREADY) get more marketing on Digital
gear through our various 3rd party programs than we give our own product. It
says that an arrangement for just a piece of their product set (Financials,
tools, whatever) will be parlayed by them into a major marketing thrust for all
of their products. It says, that the only kind of partnership they want is
a partnership where they dominate. And, they have the ability and desire to
make themselves the de-facto dominant partner.
So, I'm against a CMP agreement with ORACLE because it further damages our
ability to compete by diverting Digital marketing and sales resources to ORACLE.
I'm against it because it will be misused, as every other Digital 3rd party
program ORACLE is involved in has been misused, within ORACLE's marketing
programs.
If the corporation were to back up their engineering investment in Rdb/VMS
with the kind of marketing and sales programs that are needed in this
competitive market, I would feel much better about CMP and other 3rd
party deals. Why? Because if we had the marketing muscle then these deals would
only impact the niche's they intend to. As things stand, every one of these
agreements ROBS RESOURCES FROM Rdb/VMS.
Hal
|
| 525.17 | Just say no way! | DPDMAI::DAVISGB | Gil Davis DTN 554-7245 | Sat Jan 06 1990 03:15 | 17 |
|
Ditto to everything Hal said in .16 ...except that half of that answer
could be entitled "What's wrong with DIGITAL".
Just got off the phone with yet another sales rep who's customer bought
Oracle Financials in Houston in Nov '88. They haven't been able to
close their books for THREE MONTHS due to performance problems on a
6410 (which was upgraded from a 6310.) CPU at 30%, Memory usage at
50%, I/O eating them alive....Oracle's fix is to "upgrade" to version 6.
In her own words...'And now Oracle wants them to pay for version 6.
A new License charge! Oracle is bleeding my customer...."
Why should we encourage our sales reps to get themselves into this type
of situation by giving Oracle CMP status and making it simpler to bring
this 3rd party into their account?
|
| 525.18 | $500m is all not all DEC's | FENNEL::SILVERBERG | | Mon Jan 08 1990 17:09 | 11 |
| re:15
The $500m is a reference to the total hardware/sw/svce system leveraged
revenue for all hardware systems vendors (DEC, HP, SEQUENT, TANDEM,
IBM, NCUBE, PYRAMID, WANG, DATA GENERAL, etc) potential when ORACLE
hits a billion in revenue in a year or so. The number I keep hearing
(but have no way to confirm) is that ORACLE leverages approx. $200M
of DEC system revenue per year. They also purchase approx $8-10M
per year from us directly for their development use.
Mark
|
| 525.19 | One more negative reply | HSOMAI::SPARKS | I think, Therefore I am | Mon Jan 08 1990 19:31 | 28 |
| re .14
This isn't entirely related to this note, but couldn't resist.
< - ".... you'll need all the latest features from Oracle Financials. Since
< the financials are developed on Sequent, you should consider Sequent for
< the financials. Oh sure, you'll be able to get the same enhancements on
< VAX, but it takes time to port the financials from Sequent to the other
< environments."
I thought ORACLES big strength was portability, what does this above
statement mean????? When ORACLE designs a product using their own
product they can't do it using only their own tools??? Why else would
it be a problem to port from one platform to another. Sounds like
shooting off you foot to me.
I also would vote no on the CMP agreement. If we signed such an
agreement we would be in effect stating that we agree with their
ridiculous advertising claims. 240 tps with V 6.0. I've personally
tried to get a performance increase with V6 over V5, it's just not
there.
In fact in higly reporting and query situation the V6 that I tested was
actually slower in retrieval. I would not endorse the product and my
sympathy goes out to any specialist sold with a VMS/Oracle sell that is
supposed to accomplish what Oracle has told the customer it will.
Glenn Sparks
|
| 525.20 | Interesting VAX/Oracle site.... | NOVA::FEENAN | Back from Yugoslavia to row for Rdb | Tue Jan 09 1990 07:13 | 25 |
| <<< CHEFS::DISK$APPLICATION:[NOTES$LIBRARY]VIA_FORUM.NOTE;2 >>>
-< VIA FORUM >-
================================================================================
Note 280.0 Another ex-VAX site No replies
BAHTAT::DEIGHTON 19 lines 2-JAN-1990 10:30
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extracted from the European_Retail_Industries notes conference...
================================================================================
Note 3.5 UK Retail Account Wins/successes 5 of 5
YUPPY::PATEMAN "After you Mr Senna" 11 lines 22-DEC-1989 10:41
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-< Don't Quote Harrods >-
Harrods no longer a reference site
For the record, after a long and painful two years, Harrods are
about to install a Sequent processor to replace their VAXes. The
whole sorry saga has been down to appalling application design by
Harrods under Oracle, and their refusal to take advice from any
suppliers or to accept any responsibility for there errors. The
Sequent is undercutting a 6420 by over 150K so you could say they
are buying the business.
Paul
|
| 525.21 | CYA | NOVA::NEEDLEMAN | yesterdays technology tomorrow | Tue Feb 06 1990 02:05 | 30 |
| In my role as consultant relations manager, I just finished talking to
an independent consultant.
In the conversation Oracle came up. What follows is an abbreviated form
of his comments.
Many customers who bought into the "offload the mainframe" argument are
dumping VAX and going back to IBM and DB2.
The reason is simple - ORACLE sales tactics. They were sold
under-configured systems (including ms-dos), forced into expensive
upgrades, then switched to Sequent hardware (he said this was a triple
sale for the Oracle rep.). All the while they were paying large
support fees and receiving poor service and or performance.
I admit that the original hardware sale helped a salesrep's short term
quota problems. IF this pattern is repeated however it harms Digital
long term corporate goals.
Take heed.
On the plus side, he said many of the custoemrs he is encountering are
stating to take longer deeper looks at Oracle and are opting for Rdb or
other 3rd party database products.
Barry
|