Oracle: You Lie!

I've been remiss in blogging of late, largely due to navigating the rough seas created by Larry Ellison's Oracle. You see, as an owner of an IT solution provider, I've been grappling with sustaining a once thriving and profitable business that's dangerously too-tightly-coupled to Oracle now that it owns Sun Microsystems.

Shame on me for taking Larry & Co. at their word during Oracle's January 27, 2010 unveiling of their new systems strategy post Sun acquisition. This was the Redwood Shores event where they emphatically stated to all the major analysts they would grow Sun to profitability rather than cut it to profitability. And would reinvigorate the Sun brand to prevent further defection of Sun's customer base.

It seems illogical now that someone as pragmatic as I would forget one of Larry Ellison's famously published truisms -- "We can't be successful if we don't lie to customers".

Both customers and partners alike can speak volumes on Oracle's strong-arm tactics and willingness to lie to close a multimillion dollar deal. Yet, as much as the company is universally feared and loathed, the money keeps rolling into the Oracle coffers.

That's because those evil geniuses at Oracle realized more than a decade ago that once a customer is running its core business functions on Oracle software, the cost of exit is extremely high -- so high, that it's nearly impossible to exit from Oracle's stranglehold.

You may not like it, but Oracle proves that it pays to lie!