[Info-vax] OT: news from the trenches (re: Solaris)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-03-11 17:22:34 +0000, <lists at openmailbox.org> said:

> On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 12:27:24 -0400
> Stephen Hoffman via Info-vax <info-vax at rbnsn.com> wrote:
> 
>> I'd wager that Oracle sales would be happy to sell to smaller firms, 
>> but they're running into some stiff competition with the likes of> 
>> PostgreSQL, SQLite and other databases.
> 
> No, the signals and statements are very clear on this and the feedback 
> is in. Small and mid-sized shops that were good and dedicated Sun 
> customers can't even get a salesman to call back from Oracle. Either 
> you're Fortune 500/1000 or you get a dial tone.

Yes.  Connect that back around to why that's the case, though: Oracle 
are aimed an the high-end, with prices and support contracts and 
support plans and the rest all aimed that way, and there likely isn't 
enough revenue available from the direct sales folks trying to dealing 
with the smaller customers, particularly given the smaller customers 
can potentially use other options.   Not that anybody particularly 
goals or can even afford to have inside sales folks around selling 
software to the commodity end of the software business.  Oracle could 
conceivably lower their software prices, but that means they would lose 
revenues from their current sales and they might not receive an 
increase in sales sufficient to offset that loss, if the prices and the 
sales are inelastic.

Sales folks sell what they're goaled to sell, because that's where the 
sales reps make their living.  Now as to whether those sales goals 
happen to reflect the goals of the organization, that is an entirely 
different discussion.  But I digress.   DEC and Compaq and HP also 
targeted their direct-sales folks at their biggest customers.    Any 
competent high-end computing vendor and most any other organization 
with an in-house sales team does exactly the same, too.  At lower 
prices, a vendor has to automate the sales and support.

VMS itself is aimed at the high-end, and the question there is whether 
the VMS product prices and the VMS sales are at all elastic — if things 
are inelastic, then lowering the VMS prices makes no sense.  If the 
prices are somewhat elastic, then lowering the prices might possibly 
make more money for VSI, and potentially much more.   Then there are 
discussions of local minima in the product pricing, and the marginal 
costs of production — costs which are pretty low for most software — 
and about growing the customer base.    Operating system and hardware 
platforms  tend to be fairly slow-moving markets, as folks aren't 
really fond of changing platforms until and unless there's a good 
reason to do that — conversions and ports are not cheap.  Though there 
are a few cases where a new product or platform does utterly rip 
through the market.    But I digress.  Again.

>> Oracle is undoubtedly looking at their costs and their revenues, and 
>> particularly at the associated trends.
> 
> From what I read and hear most of the ex Sun customers don't agree with 
> that assessment. You're thinking like a businessman but Oracle (the 
> company) is not a business. It's an ego trip, a diamond ring, and a 
> gold watch. It's all about Larry. If you listen to Larry he is simply 
> not interested in small potatoes and he has enough cash to run the Sun 
> acquisition into the ground and not lose sleep over it.

Oracle got Java, MySQL and some other useful pieces and parts, and a 
platform that they could use for their own dedicated hardware.  But I'm 
certain Oracle is looking at their revenues for each of their products 
and segments.  To use your chosen framework here, if Mr Ellison thought 
he could make more money by investing yet more money in Solaris and 
SPARC, then he would do exactly that.

> It's very difficult and perhaps impossible for quality products to 
> exist in that marketplace where the consumer is driven by lower and 
> lower costs as what defines good, better, best. Things that work, are 
> highly available, secure, manageable, etc. are nice and all, but if 
> they cost anything (Linux is free, remember) then they're just too damn 
> expensive. Free trumps good.

Yeah; for the commodity end of the market.  There is at least one 
vendor that is still making a whole lot of money in computing, and with 
enviable margins.  In the computing space, that vendor is making it 
difficult for the commodity producers of Intel boxes for Windows, as 
the vendor is garnering most of the revenues in the most profitable 
parts of the computing market, both above and below Windows.

>> FWIW and if processor elegance is of general interest to you, maybe 
>> have a look at the ARMv8-vintage architecture, within the current crop> 
>> of potential choices.
> 
> I find ARM ugly. I know it has its fans but for a RISC machine it is 
> way too complicated and getting worse.

Have you looked at ARMv8?  Yes, various of the earlier ARM stuff was 
pretty ugly.

BTW:  
<http://blog.calbucci.com/2015/02/22/a-breakdown-of-everymove-technology-costs-in-2014/> 
is a nice break-down of the IT and software costs of a small startup.


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