Oracle wants to be your best friend

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Oracle makes a picture-perfect suggestion as to why consolidation is creepy. I'm not sure whether would-be buyers are supposed to be encouraged or dismayed by this advertisement that I found in the Wall Street Journal:

Oracle wants to be everything to you

Seriously, why would you want one vendor to service all needs? It's the absolute best way to ensure that you get stuck with an ever-increasing maintenance bill. The best way to keep costs down is through choice. It's what a free market is all about.

[Carlos_Hawes]

The flip side of the argument is that Oracle is also one of the strongest corporate voices championoing Linux. They have switched their development platform from Sun to Linux and Oracle 11g was release on Linux before any other OS. Not that they are freinds with Linux (especially Red Hat) through some deep seated open corporate philosophy (they are as proprietary as the next guy when it comes to their own software), they just see it is a very powerful business advantage. SQL Server on Windows was killing them on price when compared to an Oracle/Proprietary UNIX stack. So Linux lets them drastically cut the OS portion of their TCO without cutting into their bread and butter database licensing income.

The REAL target of this ad is of course SAP. Ellison is fixated right now on crushing SAP. I hope he is not overlooking the real threat from Redmond against his core database market share.

[grgkstnz]

You make it seem you have a choice after the purchase is made. Once the deal is done get ready for the maintenance costs no matter what - because migrating away to some other solution is painful and costly. Why not go with a single vendor when that means you might have more leverage to either
: get attention
- get fixes faster since its all their stuff working together
- get bigger discounts based on install base of all products

Choice is a myth the day after the product is installed.

G