Although I have never had direct experience with Oracle Consulting, I have talked with others who have.
Mind you, this was about four years ago and things may have changed. The most important theme during the conversations (and these were from unrelated sources) was that you must expect to $$PAY$$ $$PAY$$ $$PAY$$ when you even breathe the words 'Oracle Consulting', 'Oracle Professional Services' and whatever buzzwords they are using at the moment. These guys are expensive. And they want every last $$$Buck they can get as they don't realy get any salary from Oracle. They work strictly on contract. No consulting job, no pay. Another theme that seems to persist no matter who I talked with is that it is very easy to get into a 'run away' situation where the costs and times get out of control. Please, please get your job as specificaly defined as possible. Try to break it down into specific modules/components/steps/whatever as possible. Accurately define what you want to go in and what you want to come out. The more specific you make your design request, the less likely you will get into a run away scenario. Another advantage on using modules or components is that you can break down the fees based on components. You can also structure your contract so that payments are done based on components that can be individualy tested. If it does not work, they get no payment. Also please try to have someone else do the testing. You did accurately define what each component is supposed to do, didn't you? Whay can't you hand that definition to someone else and have them certify that it does what it is supposed to do. Overall, please keep these guys on a short leash. As for myself, I have gotton off of Oracle and am using open source solutions. I have found that I am able to get much of the help that I need from the community by Googling and asking. I don't know what you need to have done; but I have been very impressed at what I have been seeing available in the open source community. Good Luck! Luv Mark _______________________________________________ bblisa mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa
