Oracle fails to get in the right spirit

 

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Posted on 21 Dec 2000 at 12:01

It's the season of goodwill to all men, but Oracle doesn't seem to have noticed as it gleefully tries to poke fun at Microsoft's expense...

Oracle has rushed out an official announcement, "wishing Microsoft a Billion Happy Returns (On Investment)". It makes great play of the recent reports of a "cost-conscious" Microsoft. But in terms of taste, it seems rather cheesy: "In the spirit of Holiday giving, Oracle is pleased to share with Microsoft how it was able to achieve more than $1 Billion in savings during the last year, improving operating margins by more than 10 percentage points in each of the last four quarters. The secret: using Oracle's own E-Business Suite of enterprise software, Oracle has realised dramatic efficiencies and cost savings in nearly every area of its business."

It finishes with one final dig at Microsoft: "Indeed, like many other SAP customers, Microsoft could discover that it's cheaper to put in the Oracle E-Business Suite than it is to try to finish their SAP implementation. Ho Ho Ho!"

Tsk. Hardly the spirit of Christmas.

More aggressive Oracle marketing comes in the form of an extension to its "Million Dollar Web Site Performance Guarantee". Originally launched in October, the Larry Ellison-backed "guarantee" now includes the use of BEA's WebLogic Server: "Companies presently using Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2 or BEA WebLogic Server to power their production Web sites are guaranteed to run their sites three times faster by converting to the Oracle9i Application Server and the Oracle8i database."

When will there be peace on earth with Oracle around?

Author: Alun Williams