Oracle is paying off every politician in sight / RE: How Oracle screwed California
ORACLE-L Digest -- Volume 2002, Number 120 -- From: Steven Lembark [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 09:30:40 -0500 Subject: RE: How Oracle screwed California -- Boivin, Patrice J [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't know if Microsoft negotiates -- do they negotiate? Quite. They make Norton Simon look like a pushover. See coverage of the recent trial for examples. The California State University system negotiated some pretty good education discounts from MS. In the CSU case, Microsoft wasn't pushing their products, the CSU was begging MS to give the discounts (or so the legend goes). Previous negotiations with Novell were a giant pain, so Novell got dumped when NT4 became viable as a LAN/intranet server alternative to Netware (this was at the time that a transition from Netware v3 to v4 was being contemplated, along with a fairly vast expansion of the number of server boxes). fwiw, CSU separately licensed Oracle, and has never been involved with DOIT, unDOIT, or any of that nonsense as far as I know. Oracle gave CSU a pretty good education discount also. Don't forget that as the DOIT fiasco was progressing, the branch of Northrop Gruman (Logicon?) that was hired by DOIT to study the State's Oracle licensing ended up getting $28 million of the $41 million overcharge! Note that the State Employee Union was complaining about DOIT's handling of Oracle licenses in AUGUST 2001!!! http://www.calcsea.org/csd/committees/IT/20010830-oracle.asp (contains broken links) California State Auditor's (scathing) report (109 pages): ---excerpts--- http://www.bsa.ca.gov/bsa/pdfs/2001128.pdf ... | According to its director, beginning in June 2000, | representa-tives of the Department of Information Technology | (DOIT) | attended meetings at which state chief information officers | (CIOs) expressed concern with how much their respective | departments were paying to license and support software. Because | of these concerns, in that same month, DOIT contracted with | Logicon Inc. (Logicon), a software reseller and provider of IT | sys-tems and support services, to review industry best practices | for enterprisewide software licensing and provide a report | delineating alternative licensing strategies for the State to | consider. Although DOIT received a draft, Logicon never | completed the report, and DOIT ultimately cancelled the contract | on November 30, 2001. Between February and May 2001, Logicon | made a series of sales presentations for representatives of | DOIT, General Services, and the Department of Finance (Finance). | Included in at least one of these presentations was a document | in which Logicon suggested the State employ it to negotiate an | ELA with Oracle. ... ---end excerpt--- Here is the thinking of one of Sacramento's venerable political corruption analysts, journalist Dan Walters: http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/2436460p-2880957c.html ---begin excerpt--- Dan Walters: Davis, top aides scramble to avoid onus for Oracle contract debacle By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Tuesday, April 30, 2002 It's amusing, in an appalling sort of way, to watch Gov. Gray Davis and his top aides scramble to shun responsibility for the Oracle Corp. computer software scandal. This is, after all, a governor who has boasted that he controls virtually every decision made in his administration -- who, in fact, has profanely berated underlings who did something without his approval. It stretches credulity to the snapping point for Davis' spinners to insist that the governor was completely unaware that his administration was signing a massive software deal with Oracle, especially because Oracle delivered a $25,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic governor's treasury just days after the contract was signed. The $95 million contract, for software that few in state government apparently wanted in the first place, first surfaced in a San Jose Mercury News article, and a couple of weeks ago, the state auditor's office issued a scathing report, suggesting that rather than saving money, as Oracle has claimed, the software may wind up costing the state many extra millions of dollars. The audit report touched off the finger-pointing scramble. During a Legislative Audit Committee hearing, heads of three state agencies disclaimed responsibility for evaluating the software, each saying that he assumed that someone else had done it. Subsequently, the least politically secure of the three, General Services Department Director Barry Keene, was sent packing. Keene is a former state senator whose erratic personality and lack of administrative experience ill-suited him for the job in the first place. Making Keene the sacrificial lamb (Keene suggested that his marital woes may have contributed to his attention deficit) suited Davis better than dumping Finance Director Tim Gage
RE: How Oracle screwed California
Yes, I hear that here too negotiations between Oracle and Canada are tough... Idon'tknowifMicrosoftnegotiates--dotheynegotiate? Usually it seems to me managers just buy Microsoft boxes one at a time, without worrying too much about the overall costs and interoperability. Just curious if there are negotiations like this between Microsoft and the state governments, for example. Regards, Patrice Boivin Systems Analyst (Oracle Certified DBA) Systems Admin Operations | Admin. et Exploit. des systèmes Technology Services | Services technologiques Informatics Branch | Direction de l'informatique Maritimes Region, DFO | Région des Maritimes, MPO E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message-From: Nicolai Tufar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 5:33 AMTo: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-LSubject: How Oracle screwed California http://theregister.co.uk/content/7/25055.html
RE: How Oracle screwed California
Sounds like Ca. kind of did it to itself Let the buyer beware...Seems we have forgotten that old adage... -Original Message- Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 4:33 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L http://theregister.co.uk/content/7/25055.html http://theregister.co.uk/content/7/25055.html -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Freeman, Robert INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California-- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: How Oracle screwed California
Agreed. The problem lies with DOIT, the Department of Information Technology, which was created to protect the state from such deals. Unfortunately its head was a political appointee whose selection was based on his ability to deliver votes, not to understand software contracts. The state is doing away with DOIT. When that was first announced, the head of DOIT was pleading with software companies for funds to fight the department's closure! Ian MacGregor Stanford Linear Accelerator Center [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 6:13 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sounds like Ca. kind of did it to itself Let the buyer beware...Seems we have forgotten that old adage... -Original Message- Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 4:33 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L http://theregister.co.uk/content/7/25055.html http://theregister.co.uk/content/7/25055.html -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Freeman, Robert INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California-- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: MacGregor, Ian A. INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California-- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
RE: How Oracle screwed California
-- Boivin, Patrice J [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't know if Microsoft negotiates -- do they negotiate? Quite. They make Norton Simon look like a pushover. See coverage of the recent trial for examples. -- Steven Lembark 2930 W. Palmer Workhorse Computing Chicago, IL 60647 +1 800 762 1582 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Steven Lembark INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services-- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California-- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
