SMB IT | Curtis Franklin » SMBs Shouldn't Count Out Oracle

September 07, 2005 | Comments: (0)

SMBs Shouldn't Count Out Oracle

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If there's a name more synonymous with big honking enterprises than Oracle, I don't know it. In my last real-life negotiation with Oracle reps some five years ago, they cheerfully put a $2 million price tag on software we figured we'd get for $500K. Taking care of the little guy just didn't seem to be on Ellison's radar.

But since then open source has taken the world by storm (especially the host of powerful OSS databases) and probably taken a respectable chunk of Oracle's market share with it. So the guys from Redwood Shores, CA have taken to singing a different tune.

Yes, Oracle knows the SMB market exists. You can find several dedicated links for SMBs on Oracle's site, and they've got a surprising amount of meat. Mostly technical flesh, though. You can find oodles of whitepapers and a large number of recorded seminars and Web casts all free for the downloading. But unless you're an Oracle DBA or serious about becoming one, this stuff is largely as interesting as watching paint dry. Three or four of these docs in a row and I want to peel off my own corneas with a paint scraper. And why is so much of it in PDF?

For business managers, you'll find the typically objective customer case studies and loads of advertorial content for additional Oracle services and partner products. That last is actually pretty helpful if you know what you're looking for. An important relationship for the SMB set, apparently, is Oracle's partnership with Dell. (Funny, because I deal with Dell quite a bit in my alter ego as a diabolical IT consultant and they've never mentioned Oracle to me or my SMB customers. Unrequited love?)

In a really good move, Oracle has opened its online store to SMB customers. If you know what you want and you can't afford to deal with a ruggedly handsome, smooth talking middle man like yours truly, Oracle will let you buy most anything you like online. That's a big plus for smaller business folks who just need to get the job done with the least amount of hassle.

Now if Oracle would only be part of industry shootouts like the Identity Management shootout we InfoWorlders just finished at the ANCL lab in Honolulu, maybe the SMB set would learn to trust the platform a bit more. Hard to know someone's the best at something if they never go out and prove it.

Posted by Oliver Rist on September 7, 2005 01:20 PM

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