A Letter to Larry

This week's blog was inspired among other things by the White Paper: Oracle Integrated Stack - Complete, Trusted Enterprise Solutions.

An open letter to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison:

Dear Mr. Ellison,

We have watched the evolution of Oracle with growing interest ever since you took over PeopleSoft and with that acquisition became the owners of J D Edwards, a company which, as you probably know, has had a long time affiliation with our platform of choice, the IBM i (formerly known as the AS/400). Our interest was further piqued when, in January of 2010, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems thereby adding hardware and operating systems to its product line.

We found ourselves wondering whether it could indeed be that at last a major force in the computer industry had woken up to the needs of small and medium businesses for an integrated solution. One that would let them focus more on running their business and less on managing their hardware and software stacks. One that offered the possibility of not only simplifying the task of database management, but of improving database performance by pushing more functionality down into the operating system layer. It certainly looked as if this might be in the cards. 

Subsequent announcements from Oracle have clearly identified that this is indeed a major theme for your company and we're thrilled. In our opinion, far too many businesses have been taken for a ride over the past few years. The snake oil salesmen promise them a "modern" solution with lower cost than their current system. What they eventually deliver of course is invariably a system that requires two, three or more times the number of servers originally proposed, not to mention the increased staffing levels needed to keep it all working. Of course, by the time they realize the trap that they have been led into, most are too committed, or just plain embarrassed, to admit that they made a poor choice. 

So why are we writing? We want to wish you every success with your new venture. The businesses of North America, and indeed the world, deserve better than they have been getting. If Oracle's integrated platform is successful, perhaps - just perhaps - IBM will realize that they too own such a dream system. Perhaps your success will allow them to see with new eyes the treasure trove that they already have in their own IBM i systems and join you in the quest of bringing sanity, simplicity and reliability back to the business community. 

Competition is good for all of us. We wish you luck - and may the best system win.