Dennis Byron

Why Should Oracle Even Bother with the EU?

Thanks

You are referring to Oracle's statement, which it issud in response to the EU Statement of Objections adn filed with the SEC. I was trying to get the actual document that the EU gave to Sun but the EU says such documents are not public (but someone--probably SAP--will leak it).

Dennis


On Nov 12 09:11 AM reyito wrote:

> Dennis,
>
> The EU's statement can be found in Oracle's 8-k filing.
>
> Keep up the good work.

Open Source Bloggers Don't Let the Facts Confuse Them When Attacking Microsoft

Dear Wild-eyed Zealot:

I would prefer to email you directly about this rather than bore other SA readers but I need to assure you that my definition is not "odd" or "bizarre," I am not confusing free and open source, and I fully understand all the implications of what I am writing about. You are missing something but I can't figure out what it is. Again, I assume it is your admitted zealotry.

In my research, I use the Open Source Initiative definition of open source. Please note that the word distribution and/or redistribuion appears in seven of its 10 characteristics, including the first (see www.opensource.org/doc...). In two of the three characteristics where the words are not mentioned (the discrimination characteristics, numbers 5 and 6), the subject is clearly about distribution. The concept of distribution appears ahead of the obvious characteristic of open source being source code related, which is only mentioned in two of the 10 characteristics.

That is why we say "The term Open source software refers to some specific terms and conditions in the software’s license primarily related to redistribution." Again I point out the word primarily. I did not say exclusively.

I still don't get your point about "free" but try me again and I urge you to email me direct.

Dennis

Open Source Bloggers Don't Let the Facts Confuse Them When Attacking Microsoft

Dear Wild-eyed FOSS Zealot.

At least you are honest about your biases. But I believe your zealotry makes you read things that are not in my article and ignore things that are.

If you do not understand why the sentence “Open source software refers to some specific terms and conditions in the software’s license primarily related to redistribution" is accurate then it is you who bases your opinion on ignorance. Note that I say "primarily related to redistribution." Most of the investment-research readers of this web site are sophisticated enough to know the obvious link between the word "source" and the phrase "source code" and we don't bog down each other by repeating things.

The rest of your comment is unclear since the original article clearly says there is confusion in the Stanford/Harvard abstract between the words free and open source. So are you re-iterating that or disagreeing with it?

Thanks

Dennis Byron

Supply Chain Management Enterprise Software: And Then There Was None

Bob (User 249699)--

Thanks for the comment

You may be right abou MANH. Terri O'Hanlon, its SVP of Marketing, made a similar comment above so I did not dig deeper. Again, my point is "be careful investing in sectors such as APS that primarily do not standalone as a market" (as illusrated by the way all of these companies were gobbled up) I think EAM may be the next such sector.

I did not do a post on August 12 and do not know MGI Research. This was my only post on JDAS so the article you reference must be elsewhere on SA?

Thanks again

Dennis Byron

Supply Chain Management Enterprise Software: And Then There Was None

Correction: A reader that apparently wants to remain anonymous has contacted me offline to note that Demand Management was acquired by Logility (which in turn is mostly owned by American). So there are basically none left by my analysis or just a few left as described in some of the comments above (for which we say thanks as always) that analyze it slightly differently.

To the question, "So what?," my point might have been lost in all of us waltzing down supply chain's memory lane. My point was that there are some functional software areas that will not support separate companies in which to invest. Spell checking was one year ago. APS was one as described in this post. And I feel EAM might be the next one in that category.

-- Dennis

Oracle Sues SAP: Below the Belt With a 2x4

Thanks for the correction, Diana.

I was joking in my post last nite but I really was on vacation that second week of July and didn't see the Reuters interview. I did "attend" the SAP conference call the following week (July 20) when SAP formally announced its Q2 2006 results and I didn't make note of any comments along those lines. I am sure the handlers had Henning pretty well prepped by the following week not to fall into the trap if the same question were asked.

I call it a trap because--as I posted here on SeekingAlpha a few days ago--the way to look at these competitive comparisons is on a trailing-12-month basis. Even Oracle suggests that in its investor material. In this case, Henning apparently was comparing one of his historically slow quarters with Oracle's historically fastest growing quarter. [Not too smart but not as dumb as allegedly stealing thousands of documents (that I think he could legally buy under restraint of trade regulations).]

Time period is only one methodological quirk than investors need to look at when comparing competitive software market share claims. Are they talking about license, license and maintenance, or total revenue (including subscription fees) is another.

Exchange rate is another. As I posted in January--when SAP claimed to have gained 3 points on the market in 2006 on an annual basis--that is probably just as misleading because SAP got a big exchange rate boost last year by most methodologies.

Another important methodological technique is to backcast. Oracle rarely does that because it is not required by GAAP.

Trying to account for all these factors (and no mormalization actions are ever perfect), SAP grew its applications product business (eliminating NetWeaver revenue) 12.4% last year while Oracle only grew its comparable applications software business 8.7%. Given Oracle's announcement on March 20, I expect that spread to have significantly narrowed when looking at SAP's trailing 12 months results for the period ending March 31, 2007 vs. Oracle's trailing 12 month results for the period ending February 28, 2007. Oracle might even begin to gain share for the first time since the PeopleSoft announcement.

Red Hat, Oracle: Cross Currents in the Linux Market

I cannot judge the methodology of the Pacific Crest market research vis a vis Oracle doing better in the Linux market versus Red Hat and others than conventional wisdom (CW) suggests. But I am inclined to believe it. In 30 years of doing IT market research, many of them specifically tracking Oracle ERP and middleware products, I found very often that Oracle had a higher presence in a market than CW said.

Case in point, BEA and IBM executives consistently told me that they never saw Oracle in application-server sales situations in the early years of this decade. But Oracle publicly stated (subject to time in the SOX pen if it were false) that it was growing its application-server business dramatically both in terms of revenue and unit sales. I believe both sides were telling me the truth (or as close to the truth as you get from marketing folks). The disconnect occurs because the large and largely satisfied Oracle database installed base is installing other Oracle products without even talking to a second source. This phenomenon is very likely happening with Oracle Linux as well.

Oracle to Buy Hyperion Solutions for $3.3B Cash -- NYT

Sorry Alfred but Oracle will do anything to surpass BEA in "middleware." Even acquire a middleware company tight with IBM, Microsoft and SAP.

Will Oracle Pass BEA In the Middleware Market?

Hi Robert. Thanks for the comment. In my phrase in the last paragraph of my December 21 SeekingAlpha opinion, "if Fusion doesn't do the job," I am referring to Fusion in the broadest sense, just as Oracle does in defining middleware. I do not mean just the application server, lower case (not just OC4J if that helps).

As the original post tries to argue, Oracle's broad definition of middleware is what will allow Oracle to "overtake BEA" in Oracle's fourth fiscal quarter
-- BEA doesn't offer products in most of the categories that Oracle (and IBM, SAP and Microsoft) call middleware so of course Oracle will eventually be larger (unless BEA acquires someone in the 4GL, business intelligence/analytics or collaboration markets).
-- I have never understood Oracle management's obsession with this claim (which is always made to the investor community, not to those of us that follow the technology closely) because it is so misleading.
I can only conclude it is an attempt to divert attention from the broader picture.

That big picture, under the numbers, is that Oracle is really competing against IBM, SAP and Microsoft with Fusion middleware, not BEA. Fusion middleware is still just in the process of becoming a suite (I think Oracle calls it a platform) in the way that WebSphere, NetWeaver and implicitly the middleware bundled into NT already are (because the others have been at it longer and/or are less dependent on acquisitions). That's why I still think there's a chance Fusion in this broad sense "won't do the job" for your applications guys as they try to truly integrate the many application architectures (10, I think, last time I counted) they have inherited.

If that happens and Oracle needs another middleware suite to put under its next-generation apps, BEA would be a good choice (or the best of some bad choices:
-- SAP and Microsoft would make no sense because they are the direct applications market competitors
-- IBM would probably be a bad choice culturally although I think the market would accept it).

(Hopefully it's clear from the above that I am looking at SAP NetWeaver in this same broad way, not just at its application server, lower case. In fact, I have said publicly that I think that the NWAS is NetWeaver's weak link and I would like to see SAP get something like the TP-monitor capbility that was built into Basis under their next-generation apps.)

Dennis