On 8/22/2010 5:47 PM, Jason wrote:
On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 4:42 PM, John Plocher<john.ploc...@gmail.com> wrote:
2010/8/20 Matthias Pfützner<matth...@pfuetzner.de>
Let me add some numbers...
...
that a high percentage might be working on Solaris might provide us with
an
approach to a number close to 1000 engineers...
Of your 1000 engineers, maybe 100 were the senior leaders in innovation,
vision, drive and ability. At Sun, the makeup of that "club" was
exceedingly dynamic, to be sure, but it was a meritocracy - if you were
*good* and had job/product/whatever performance to prove it, membership was
open; nobody had to leave to make room for you.
From what I have seen (and I have no visibility into the current numbers or
membership), a significant number of the distinguished engineers and fellows
that were there when Oracle took over have left. 30%? 50%? More? I don't
know either, but the Names that are making the headlines all come from that
small club...
IM(ns)HO, losing that many top performing engineers to the competition will
do more to harm Oracle in both the short and long run than anything that
might conceivably happen due to "premature product and feature exposure" due
to open source community involvement. Nobody really cares if a company lays
off a bunch of its low level staff, but losing half of the technical
leadership of a technical company is a disaster. Oracle may have bought the
trademarks and rights to the code, but the real value of an acquisition is
in the minds of those who produced the products in the first place - long
term engineering excellence isn't a commodity that can be cheaply purchased
or easily duplicated.
Don't forget that the easiest way to make the books look better in the short
term is to get rid of all those expensive engineers - you will immediately
see a 10%-15% rise in profitability because you no longer have to pay the
cost of development. Of course, after 24 to 36 months of coasting, you will
be dead, but given the Street's myopic focus and short term memory, who
cares? Just buy some other company and start everything over again...
Of course, acquisition as your growth strategy has yet to be shown to
work in the long terms as well...
Not really. *Properly done* acquisition has a well-proven method of
maintaining growth and a competitive advantage that larger companies
often find hard to do organically. Cisco has a darned good track record
of doing this. So do a couple of major financial institutions (even the
current downturn notwithstanding). And, I think Warren Buffet would
like to have a word with you on your opinion.
That said, many of today's "merges/buyouts/acquisitions" are done for
reasons other than growth, or are bungled badly. Time will tell if the
rather pittance Oracle paid for Sun will prove to be well-spent.
--
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop: usca22-123
Phone: x17195
Santa Clara, CA
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