Thursday, September 1, 2011

One year at Oracle Sun

One year at Oracle SunSolar eclipseApproximately one year after completion of the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, it's time to take stock. The result is sobering, however, was to be expected. Because the Oracle's business practices was well known.
 
End of the year is over. Then in 2000, inaugurated the headquarters of Sun Microsystems will be in Germany's history. The jobs will be moved from Kirchheim-Heimstetten in the Munich headquarters of Oracle. In the United States already receives the middle of Facebook to nearly 24 acres of former Sun campus in Menlo Park, Calif.These two events underscore the impression that many users and partners shortly after the takeover by Oracle won a year ago: Sun Microsystems is a closed chapter in the never-ending addition of IT history book. For without grace period and without regard to customs and traditions, the California software company made it to impose the workstation and Unix pioneer its business model.Finally, will the purchase price of $ 7.4 billion or $ 5.6 billion after deducting liquid assets and liabilities are funded. Which sounded in his time promised measures such as reduction of the portfolio system, focusing on high-margin high-end systems, streamlining the supply chain and eliminating the storage and standardization of support structures initially not different from other acquisitions. Over the past twelve months but took shape - sometimes with unpleasant consequences for the customer.
 
The buying spree of recent years is paying off for Larry Ellison made in person. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal Oracle's Rambo-like boss with a total income of $ 1.84 billion of the top earners of the past decade. At the time of the takeover Oracle boss Larry Ellison had promised usual loud-mouthed, the loss-ridden computer manufacturers and owners of Java under the direction of his company immediately to run the red. It should be noted that Ellison apparently re right reserved. For the Sun-Oracle for purchase turned out to be not so far as the financial disaster, the continued competition from HP and IBM quietly. On the contrary: In the first half of fiscal 2011 (June 1 to 30 November 2010) took the "new" hardware division of the U.S. company a nearly $ 3.5 billion, roughly 1.3 billion more than in the second half of last year (see "Oracle's semiannual financial statement"). Even to put the winning side, even if the growth of 25% was lower than the plus on the revenue side, with 47%. , The gross margin increase in the hardware claims to Oracle at 53%.Bonanza MaintenanceThe numbers of interim results confirm once again that Oracle knows where Barthel gets the juice. As a software vendor traditional stripes, the company has a well-oiled machinery upgrade and maintenance as a revenue source. In the past, the U.S. group had been repeatedly shown how quickly he can profitably integrate products bought up companies in the machinery.It was therefore clear that one of the first measures the reorganization and revision of existing policy support from Sun was on the plan. The new regulations provided for in the beginning of unrest among users of Sun systems. Even the local Oracle users DOAG Association (German Oracle User Group) felt obliged to call his favorite producers due to the new support system to increase transparency. In particular, medium users (withheld) are "eaten" by the business practices of the new owner so that they vote after years of loyal Sun with the feet and make the switch to x86 servers running Linux in attack.In turning away from Sun to the usual procedure, it is now called "all or nothing". Who wants to have support from the manufacturer, must necessarily refer to all of his unused hardware systems from Sun / Oracle maintenance. The previously existing tiered support offerings, Oracle steamed one to two variants: for Premier Support Premier Support for Operating Systems and Systems (including computer operating system and virtualization software). The price for the Premier Support for Operating Systems amounts to eight percent of the net-price system. Premier Support for the proposed system with a further four percentage points.With the maintenance contract, the customer receives the round-the-clock service. In the case of the complete package, Oracle also promises a two-hour response time for on-site support. This is true only if the location of the technician up to 40 kilometers away. The distance is 79 km, the reaction window widened to four hours. Is the distance even longer, the person seeking help must wait until the next day. With a handful of support centers, the risk is therefore high, are among the clientele of the "late-servant". In the vicinity of Hanover, for example, finds no base within the 40 - and 79-km radius.In addition to the "all or nothing" bid seem strange from the perspective of a user other conditions. This begins with the fact that all Solaris systems have operated at least to reside on the state release 10 update 9th Anyone taking out a new contract, must also demonstrate that its systems are up to date. To demonstrate this, in turn, have to take the course, not free "Premier Support Qualification Service 'there. Who wants to switch from the operating system version support to the maintenance system, must also present proof.Even more costly it is for users whose service contract is interrupted for longer than 90 days or have it completed until after the hardware purchase. You have to shell out a "reinstatement fee" of 150 percent. In fairness, the time to mention that on two things: First, the maintenance of the new features is not always more expensive for a company, on the other aspects such as the amount of installed systems have a role.
 
Image: Oracle 12/10 catching and shacklesThe bottom line is nevertheless solidified the impression that Oracle has the support practices from the world of software on the hardware segment. Unlike in application environments require customers here but not necessarily for all development and test systems have a maintenance contract. Often users have completed in the past is only liable for their production systems with a support contract. Or they put the maintenance of a portion of their systems into the hands of independent service companies. Around 2.4 billion U.S. dollars annually according to the Service Industry Association (SIA) to spend Sun-users around the world for this.Now you have to know that the maintenance of its own products through third parties, the business model threatened by Oracle in the core. Accordingly, the company responded aggressively, such as SAP has experienced extremely painful. The software makes the market happy and violently swung Intellectual Property club in the hardware segment, but much less frequently the target.Oracle Parallel therefore tried to lure users to the price itself. The difference of four percentage points between the two offers can support no more room for independent providers (over-) life. The SIA as an independent American provider association has therefore recently filed with the relevant authorities in the fifty U.S. states and the EU complaint. It accuses the manufacturer that he exploits the dominant market position and monopolized by the amended terms, the Sun hardware maintenance.The new Sun does allow owners continue to use Solaris on x86-certified systems of other manufacturers. One can relate the operating system only in this case too it. Interested users acquire the software does not, he subscribed for a year now € 792 per CPU socket. In return it receives all the services that are included in Premier Support for Operating Systems. For smaller companies this can result in quite an improvement compared to Sun means of support. In terms of maintenance for the complete system, it is nevertheless difficult to undercut Oracle. Larger competitors are also goutieren it hard to believe that the U.S. group secures the maintenance of detour a back door to their clientele.Minefield JavaThe anger on the customer side with respect to maintenance of the altered conditions in a comparatively moderate, compared with the waves of indignation that Oracle generated in the open source community. Many observers are convinced that the concerns raised by open source protagonists during the Sun takeover fears come true, not just prove to be an understatement. Repeated requests for opinions about service and open source, such as OpenOffice, were unfortunately not successful. At best, referenced papers freely available on the Internet.The Oracle-called superiors had known at the beginning of Sun's acquisition of Java software as the most important asset, which has taken her company ever. Quite a few prominent representatives of software companies were worried even then about the independence of the programming environment. And notices of allegation against Google, with Android to Java licensing terms or patents are, they seem right. James Gosling, one of the originators of Java, this attack came as no surprise. Because even during the integration discussions between Oracle and Sun in the spring of this year, the patent situation was subject. The eyes of the Oracle attorneys have literally sparkled, Gosling says in his blog. And how can make money with intellectual property, Oracle knows - see SAP."Hardball" play (s), Oracle also in other fields of open source, albeit less spectacular. The Sun's MySQL to test the alternative turned PostgreSQL on Solaris server provided in Oracle Reports without warning, according to U.S. magazines from. It took three weeks, until the community had organized behind PostgreSQL replacement. Almost seems ridiculous also, such as Oracle, the Hudson community more or less forced to rename the same integration project in Jenkins. The company simply pounded mercilessly on allegedly naming rights after the dissatisfaction with the java.net infrastructure conditions on the Oracle platform and operated by Kenai has led to a swap on a new website.Battlefield Open SourceUnderstandable, however, the commitment is shrinking around OpenSolaris. Finally, Oracle has been marketed for some time the RHEL clone "Unbreakable Linux". Two open-source operating systems under its own flag shown little sense - especially if it is intended to position the Sun operating system as an enterprise operating system for its own software. Now it's distributions, such as the communities around open indiana / Illumos, Nexenta Core Platform, or BeleniX SchilliX show whether and how it's going with the "open" Solaris system.In the case of OpenOffice, it was rather the other hand, uncertainty about the future of the project and the difficult dialogue with Oracle, which led to the founding of the LibreOffice alternative. Oracle uses its own resources in the opinion of insiders, primarily for the development of a commercially viable cloud-office offering.Without question, the Oracle from the perspective of the open source community's reputation as "Bad Company" earned. Seen in the light of this, however, was much different before. Special sympathies were brought against the company before. That Oracle's Open Source philosophy is holding up just where it serves their own businesses may be criticized. Really, it is hardly objectionable, if someone exploits market rules in his favor. For, ultimately, can this argument lead to many companies. Even Sun is committed to open source primarily to boost their own hardware and service sales. Fortunately, however, just the open-source environment, sufficient opportunity to make alternative offers on the legs, as if - as happened - Oracle sweeps the least expensive version in the MySQL subscriptions. Perhaps the lack of commitment by Oracle should be seen as an opportunity to shed the excessive dependence on one manufacturer.String field productsPeu à peu also thins the veil on the future crop of the product portfolio. The big goal here is from the beginning "Complete solutions from one source." Roughly this means: Everything that money brings, and all that is not from us, has no future. Victim of this policy is Hitachi Data Systems, which was abruptly terminated by Sun for years maintained an OEM partnership. Victims are also the more lower-end server and storage models, as Oracle boss Ellison thought preferable in large categories. Expanded rapidly, for example, the Exadata product line, which has recently set-top X2-8 model will completely fill a rack. The last months were also marked by the announcements of new server models based on the SPARC T3 (Niagara 3), led by the SPARC Supercluster "Sunrise".
 
Image: Gartner 02/2011 Höchstpersönlich Ellison presented the SPARC version of Exalogic Elastic Cloud - probably also to underline the commitment SPARC. In its maximum configuration includes the private cloud machine has a flash memory of five terabytes. Such an amount of data stores and the recently introduced until T10000C StorageTek Tape Drive on a tape cassette, so the five-fold the capacity of its predecessor T10000B.Fears that Oracle is "hardware" can not, therefore, have not materialized. A closer analysis reveals, however, that the focus is placed squarely on the integrated hardware and software bundles. In particular, the Exalogic should go like hot cakes. Ellison speaks of orders in a total amount of two billion dollars. With around 295 000 150 000 database and middleware customers so well filled sales pipeline data for the new machine is quite conceivable. Oracle only has to implement the orders and deliveries in, it wants to, as Ellison proclaimed loudly, "coming soon" to rank among the two high-end server manufacturers climb.Until now, Oracle / Sun in the worldwide market, the big loser when it comes to numbers (see Table "server sales from Sun / Oracle"). Based on the supplied server's market share broke last year by over a third to 1.8%, in terms of revenue market share declined by a quarter to 6.3%. On balance, therefore, Oracle has significantly fewer, more expensive systems sold.ConclusionWe would also like to point to all this is the opinion of Oracle. But despite weeks of its representatives were not willing to deadlines a statement. But despite the justified criticism of Oracle's business practices may be inclined to the observer a circumstance not lose sight of the Sun, it was - to put it mildly - in the last years of independence is not really good. And whether the measures would have been gratifying for a sale to IBM for users, staff, or open-source community, is certainly to be provided with thick question marks.

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