Is Oracle 11g not yet as successful as we may have been led to believe?

According to Pythian Group CEO Paul Vallee, the answer is yes. Vallee claims his research shows that Oracle 11g is being adopted at slower rates than earlier Oracle databases - and Oracle Corp. will neither comment nor provide numbers showing otherwise.

Pythian Group is an enterprise database management service that manages 718 production databases for 56 Oracle customers. Vallee says that only 3 out of the 718 databases are running 11g (which was released last July).

As I wrote last month, IDC reported that Oracle has increased its database market share. IDC analyst Carl Olofson said Oracle told him that 10% of users expressed intent to upgrade to 11g. According to Olofson, “that would be an unusually high adoption rate for the first year.”

In the Network World article, Vallee says that, based on his numbers from Pythian, “he can say with 95% confidence that no more than 3.66% of Oracle databases are running 11g. With 50% confidence, he says it’s unlikely that even 1% use 11g.” Vallee calls Pythian “a robust sample” of Oracle customers, sufficient for use in statistical studies. 

Vallee acknowledged that it might be unrealistic for Oracle to know exactly how many customers are using 11g, but the number of support requests they receive for help with 11g would be a good indication.

However, Oracle declined a request by Network World to provide any support numbers. They also declined to comment on Vallee’s claims, “instead providing links to a few documents, none of which show how many Oracle customers have adopted 11g.”

There’s nothing unusual about a slow adoption rate for a new release - so why would Oracle be reluctant to admit one? (If Vallee’s findings are valid).  And, while it may be true that “organizations worldwide adopt Oracle 11g,” just how many organizations is it,  

Know who was just ranked No. 1 on Forbes’ list of top-paid CEOs in technology companies in 2007, with a one-year net compensation of almost $193 million?

Here’s a hint: it’s not Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was knocked down to No. 11 after holding the top spot in 2006.

So, who took Jobs’ place? That would be Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who also ranked No. 1 on Forbes’ list of overall best-paid CEOs (a list on which Jobs ranked No. 120).

The rankings were based on “the overall compensation for the past year for executives, factoring in salary, cash bonuses, vested stock grants, stock gains and exercised stock options.” Nabeel Gareeb of MEMC Electronic Materials and John Chambers of Cisco Systems rounded out the top three of tech CEOs.

It’s interesting to take a look at what the blogosphere has been saying about Ellison’s “victory.” Silicon Valley reporter Sarah Lacy says that “he may not deserve how much he’s making, but he deserves to be one of the most highly paid CEOs in the Valley.”

She goes on to list Ellison’s accomplishments, including that he both “gets where technology is going” and “gets where technology business is going.”

And to all the Ellison loathers out there, Lacy (who seems to question why she isn’t one herself) had this to say: “But shareholders are not electing him president or best friend. They’re paying him to be a good CEO, and he may be one of the only ones worth what he’s being paid.”

CNET News.com blogger Charlie Cooper has a different take on things. He says that a CEO’s success should be measured by their company’s stock performance, and given Oracle’s stock performance over the last 10 years, Ellison is not worth $193 million (even though many readers leave comments criticizing the data he presents).

What do you think is the best way to measure the worth of a tech CEO? Does Ellison (or anyone, for that matter) deserve to make $193 million in a year? Or, do you think such rankings don’t even matter at all?

I recently wrote about a post by Infoworld blogger Sean McCown, who argued that the real difference between Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle is the accessible community that Microsoft has built for its users.

But would a newly released tool from the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) change McCown’s mind about a supposed lack of community resources for Oracle users?

On April 16, OAUG announced the launch of its Knowledge Factory– “a centralized, dynamic platform for user-submitted content that provides a comprehensive knowledge-sharing resource for the organization’s members,” according to the press release.

The web-based forum is completely community-driven and allows its members to discuss and exchange advice on Oracle-related topics, search a library of articles and submit their own articles, as well. Some of the Knowledge Factory’s other features include a blog and discussion area, enhanced member profiles and an OAUG Conference Paper Database.

We have a similar community-driven forum here at TechTarget called the IT Knowledge Exchange (ITKE). It’s a place where you and your peers can ask and answer questions, get advice and read blogs written by other industry experts. You can also browse information by topic; for example, check out the Oracle-related tags found here.

Where do you go for Oracle information and advice from peers? (If you go anywhere at all?) Do you find community-driven environments like the OAUG’s Knowledge Factory useful? And, if you have used this forum already, what have your experiences been like?

The RDBMS market grew about 12% in 2007, with Oracle once again emerging as the market’s top vendor.

According to the “Worldwide RDBMS 2007 Vendor Shares” report that IDC released last week, Oracle not only increased its share of the market to 44%, but this 13% growth outpaced that of the overall market. A fact Charles Philips was eager to point out recently at Collaborate.

What factors influenced these increases, both for Oracle and the market as a whole?

According to IDC, much of Oracle’s growth was due to these reasons: the sale of options for Oracle database (i.e. RAC, Audit Vault and Database Vault), and the “unusually high early adoption rates” for the recently released Oracle 11g.

Four vendors besides Oracle dominate the market: Microsoft (who lost share this year), IBM, Teradata and Sybase. IDC attributes their overall growth to increasing competition for the midmarket segment and increased emphasis on security, data compression, and features that “offer greater flexibility and manageability in deployment.”

The IDC also predicts long-term market growth for the future. They see an increase in competition between medium-sized businesses and say that “capabilities such as Web service support, XML data support, and support for blended management of unstructured and structured data should give vendors of such capabilities a competitive advantage.”

Does Oracle deserve the top spot? Does it even matter anymore or are the database wars over?

Oracle yesterday added 33 new applications to Oracle Accelerate, its partner program, bringing the total number of available solutions to 123. Accelerate allows Oracle to work with its partners to develop applications for small and medium-sized businesses.

So how does Oracle’s partner program measure up to rival SAP?

Warren Wilson, research director at Ovum, compares similar referral programs recently launched by each company. According to Wilson, while SAP’s goal is building long-lasting relationships with its channel partners, Oracle has its eye on mainly one thing: money.

“Oracle’s lead message is the money,” he said, although he couldn’t determine which company’s method (focus on money vs. relationships) is more effective.

Technology Business Research, Inc. (TBR) said recently that it sees channel management as Oracle’s greatest challenge. They say that Oracle “intends to drive 50% of license revenue through partners; however, it still relies on its direct sales team to drive most of the revenue, and the indirect channel only contributes 44 % of new license revenue.”

Another partner-related problem they see is a shift in management, with the recent departure of several key Oracle executives managing alliances and the channel.

TBR concludes by saying that in order to reach their target of 50 % partner-generated software license revenue, “Oracle would need to shift nearly $550 million from direct sales to indirect channels to balance the contribution percentages.” TBR believes the challenge is made more difficult as Oracle attempts to restart growth in software license sales in the current difficult [financial] climate.

What do you think — will Oracle be able to change things around? Or are its partnerships fine as is? Do you think there are actually bigger (and more important) challenges?

Last month I posted about a New York Times article in which Larry Ellison touted Oracle’s acquisition strategy. He wondered why more companies didn’t follow in his footsteps by pursuing hostile takeovers.

Now, Microsoft has made an announcement which Ellison will surely be pleased with (according to his own professed strategies anyway). Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave Jerry Yang and the Yahoo! management team this ultimatum Saturday morning: unless you agree to a deal within the next three weeks, we will go hostile and take the bid to a proxy fight.

Analysts are now comparing Ballmer’s words to Ellison’s five years ago, when Oracle issued its hostile bid to PeopleSoft. In Market Watch analyst Therese Poletti’s article, Yahoo seems headed the way of PeopleSoft, she compares Yang’s spiteful attitude to that of PeopleSoft head Craig Conway:

“[Such an attitude] is a dangerous position for the well-known Web pioneer. Conway lost his job when — in the heat of the merger battle — he made untruthful statements about his company’s business to analysts. Conway later admitted in a deposition that those statements were ‘absolutely not true’ and that he was ‘promoting, promoting, promoting.’

The same could be said about Yahoo. In March, Yahoo released a presentation to investors with what many have since described as unrealistic expectations and forecasts…”

Although Ellison’s bid for PeopleSoft was ultimately successful, this acquisition was a prolonged, two-year process, much of which took place in court and resulted in the falling of Oracle stock prices and PeopleSoft sales.

The damage was done on both sides, but Oracle came out the victor. And Poletti thinks Oracle’s success is indicative of that of similar corporations:

“The software giant’s track record has suggested that companies with deep pockets and resolve eventually get what they want regardless of the preferences of their adversaries.”

What do you think– Is Yang digging himself into a deeper hole by not giving in? Is his battle simply a losing one, whose fate is bound to mirror those of companies bought out by Oracle? If you were in Yang’s position, what would you do?

Oracle DBAs:  To what do you attribute problems with Oracle security?

a.) poorly designed software
b.) failure to apply  patches and maintain software
c.) lack of financial resources
d.) all of the above

This question has recently made a small stir in the blogosphere, and not everyone can agree on an answer.

Bex Huff, in his “technology, lifehacks, and all that good stuff” blog, says: “Unlike James McGovern, I don’t believe security problems are entirely due to bad software or clueless developers… I’d argue most security problems are due to improperly configured and improperly maintained software. However, I also believe that blaming the implementation team is a cop-out. Instead, developers need to realize that security is a process, not a product.”

Huff goes on to highlight what he sees as the critical process of Oracle security: applying patches. He doesn’t seem to understand why fewer than 20% of Oracle customers apply their rolling security patches.

In his blog “Enterprise Architecture: from Incite comes Insight,” James McGovern says he has the answer: Applying patches is costly. And, he says, it’s not all the fault of the user: “Can we acknowledge that the patch existed because the base software wasn’t written with security in mind in the first place?”

In McGovern’s later blog post, “If software vendors really cared about security,” he outlines some questions for enterprise companies to ask vendors before purchasing software. For example: what features does the product have that helps ensure it’s designed securely?

So, yes, the best and most practical answer is probably “d.” But do you see any of these factors as having more of an impact? Do you think either Huff or McGovern has a better understanding of the issue?

Salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff spent 13 years at Oracle Corp., before leaving the corporation and founding the CRM powerhouse Salesforce.com in 1999. Since then, Salesforce.com has enjoyed much success, including a reported 85% annualized sales growth over the last five years.

So why would Benioff want to return to the company that helped launch his career?

According to Tom Foremski (the same blogger who started the Salesforce.com acquisition rumor), it makes perfect sense for Benioff to do so, and succeed the “very close to retirement” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison when the time comes.

Foremski says that Salesforce.com could grow faster by acquiring Oracle, and that Benioff has the same hard-hitting attitude as Ellison. And, since Ellison is 63, shouldn’t he announce a successor soon?

But there’s one thing we have to remember — this is Larry Ellison we’re talking about.

Take a look at an August 2006 article from Forbes, “The extraordinary life of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.”  Even Ellison’s top two aides admit they could never succeed him, if anyone will ever succeed him at all. ( Safra Catz says: “I don’t want the job,” ; Charles Phillips says: “Larry will be here forever. We don’t discuss succession. That’s not my job.”).  

Board Chairman Jeffrey Henley, whose job it actually is, agrees: “There is no successor to Larry, no heir apparent…We discuss the subject, but there is no perfect plan. Larry still wants total control.”

Continue reading, and you’ll see that one person does have a prediction — Benioff, who might even be hinting that he could one day be in the running for Larry’s unobtainable position.

‘”Larry’s personality mandates that he’s in charge, so he can’t have a successor,” says Benioff, who founded Salesforce.com with a $2 million investment from Ellison that today is a 4% personal stake worth $100 million. “But one day he’ll have a revelation, look outside for talent — and it will likely be a former Oracle executive.”‘

How long can Ellison and his staff actually avoid the subject of succession? It should be interesting to see.

InfoWorld blogger Sean McCown recently had his say in the Oracle vs. Microsoft SQL Server debate — and some Oracle users aren’t too happy about it.

In “The real difference between SQL Server and Oracle,” McCown writes that what most sets Microsoft apart from Oracle is the community that Microsoft has built, and the ease at which the members of this community can get the information they need.

“If you take any 10 DBAs from each side and ask them to look up a solution to a probem on their platform, the SQL guys will find the answer much faster than the Oracle guys will. And that’s just a fact. If you’re looking on specifics on how Oracle works internally, it’s almost impossible to ferret out the info, but with SQL, there are so many open resources it’s just a matter of a few minutes to [find] an answer.”

Oracle, on the other hand, is doing business the old way, and “is still living in the old days where everything is a good ole boys club,” he says. This makes it difficult for Oracle users to get sufficient direction and training.

McCowan received mixed feedback, but many Oracle users disagreed with him and defended the Oracle community. Here’s some of McCowan’s response:

“I never said there were NO forums or documentation. I said that it’s really difficult to find anything when you need it…. So the question stands: How does the Oracle community go about advertising its resources?”

From your own experiences, what do you think? How could Oracle make its resources more accessible for its customers? Or, do you think Oracle actually wins out over Microsoft? (In McCown’s words, “you’re just crazy”?)

It’s no secret that Larry Ellison thinks acquisitions are a great way of growing his company. But does this make Oracle any less innovative or authentic?  

According to Ellison in this New York Times article last week, many people in Silicon Valley think just that. Ellison hopes Oracle’s series of billion-dollar acquisitions — starting with his $10.3 billion bid for PeopleSoft in 2004 — have begun to change how the industry views consolidations.

“It’s bizarre that there’s a stigma to buying something rather than building it yourself,” he tells the NYT’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Sorkin says that Ellison has not only made “hostile deals” acceptable, but has proven they can work. Ellison agrees: “They are copying us. Others would be foolish not to try.”

If this is true, then Ellison’s latest “copycat” is Microsoft, whose $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo was rejected last month. But what’s surprising, in this case, is that Ellison suggests he’s actually rooting for longtime rival Microsoft. Tech blogger Kara Swisher also questions what’s making Ellison root for his nemesis. 

Do you think Oracle’s (or any other company’s) acquisition history downplays its innovation? Would users be better off if Oracle built everything itself? Some of it?