Court decision – Oracle vs License Consulting 0:1
Indeed it is an incredible title for an article, and I never thought anything like it would be written by me.
Sometime last year, my house was raided by Oracle. 2 policemen and 3 bailiffs showed up, with a court order that allowed them to secure data that I obtained during a licensing project at one of my clients. Oracle was then tempting me to handover that confidential information voluntarily, not realizing I’d rather go bankrupt than do such a hideous thing. It appeared as intimidation indeed: Oracle’s legal case was specifically built up against me as an individual, not even against the company that governs the License Consulting label. I’m still in the blanks (yet curious) about who the brilliant Oracle employee was that set all this into motion.
Interestingly, for the purpose of being really independent none of my companies or myself have any contract or partnership with Oracle (or any other vendor for that matter). As such, Oracle could not and did not specify any reason why they would be allowed to secure any information from me or my computers in the first place. Strangely – and I presume by mistake – Oracle’s request to raid my house was approved by the court.
The bailiffs checked what information I might have in my computer systems, bedroom, kitchen and car that could possibly support Oracle’s so-called legal case. To their regret our hosted servers were out of reach (in Germany), so they had to be excluded from the raid. Still, thousands of electronic files relating to my client were retrieved and sealed, awaiting the court’s ruling.
This is months ago now. The client recently asked me what my professional opinion is about where we are. That’s a good question indeed. So, after some thought this is what I have to say about it:
Dear Larry Ellison,
Oracle is a great company and has some superior products. Many nice individuals are working there, including good friends. But when it comes to current customer engagement from sales, you should seriously take a look at Microsoft’s EPG sales team: Their prime focus is trying to help clients instead of increasingly trying to suck every cent out of them and tell fairytales about licensing. So, hire an old school EPG guy, and make him sales director of your clients. Your clients may even stop trying to get rid of Oracle software already in use, as the perception of Oracle will really change. Right now your client’s satisfaction diagrams about Oracle as a partner look very bad, and you deserve better.
Also I suggest you to address compliance differently. As over 50% of your technology revenue in the Benelux region is influenced by your compliance teams, indicators are that there’s something wrong with your license methodologies. This percentage is unheard of in the industry. And even though your view about the future is quite fun: In terms of licensing Clouds, you haven’t solved that licensing-scenario with your opinion just yet. So go and simplify Oracle licensing for now and the future, and make my line of work obsolete. But cleanup Oracle’s current license- and support database before you start, or you’ll just increase the problems. There are enough examples in the market when it comes to finding alternative licensing solutions that can also deal with the licensing history you have. With the proper mix’n match, I see beauty ahead of us all.
Last but not least, thanks for raiding my house and thus involving me into this. I find it somewhat hilarious and still hard to believe, but professionally – as you can probably imagine – utmost interesting.
All the best,
Daniel
To nobody’s surprise, the court recently ruled that Oracle was on a fishing-expedition and should pay me for the inconveniences caused. Meanwhile I’m waiting for the sound of an Oracle employee being thrown into the water. I have decided to donate Oracle’s cash to the Electronic Frontier Foundation who is actively supporting a quite similar case, so that they can continue their mission.
Finally, my family and I want to thank the lawyers from The Lawfactor for their excellent legal advice, as well as the client’s indisputable commitment and support for my position. And to the journalist crew: I have nothing else to say except what’s written here, and lots of fun work to do and write about. So there’s no need to ask for more!
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2 replies op “Court decision – Oracle vs License Consulting 0:1”
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Dude…. wtf!!!! I’ll give you a ring later this week.
Cheers
Carlos
+46 708 428 568
What a bizarre story! I also conduct many IT audits for clients and we have a lot of customer audit data. But if a vendor has a quarrel with a customer of us they should really knock on the customer’s doors and not on ours. The fact that Oracle actually tried this must have been quite intimidating and unpleasant, so I’m glad the court ruled in your favor. Now that their way of working is out in the open I can only hope they will think twice before trying it somewhere else!