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

[lists at openmailbox.org]

On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 14:54:04 -0400
Stephen Hoffman via Info-vax <info-vax at rbnsn.com> wrote:

> 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.

No, you keep thinking like a businessman and that is the right way to look
at things in general. To understand Oracle you have to think like a
megalomaniac. He does things that doesn't make sense, that don't need
justification, because of ego, and just because he can.

> > 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.

Apple? But they have no corporate channel. And businesses aren't buying for
religious reasons. I remember when qualified technical people made
purchasing decisions based on technical merit. For the last few decades
MBAs are making purchasing decisions based on spending as little as
possible and the intangibles be damnned.

> >> 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.

No, I haven't seen it yet.

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