A number of Oracle customers banded together recently at the annual OAUG conference, where they formed a 10.7 "de-support" support group. Their plan: Provide technical support for each other until they move to 11i on their own timeframe, not the one mandated by Oracle. Since forming last month, nearly 160 companies have joined the 10.7 de-support group -- the first such group ever created in the 12-year history of OAUG, according to its board members. The de-support group has submitted a list of recommendations to Oracle, including a request for the company to keep online documentation and patches for 10.7 available on its customer support Web site after June 30, 2003, according to Pat Dues, chair of the OAUG customer support council and an IT project officer for the city of Las Vegas. The group has also requested that Oracle extend online technical assistance to 10.7 customers with routine problems past June 30, 2003. Oracle has yet to respond to the recommendations and maintains it has been more than fair to customers on the upgrade issue. The company has provided support for the 10.7 version for seven years and has extended the discontinue date for the product twice already, Oracle executives point out. "There's no question the economy is a factor, and that is difficult for some customers, but we've pushed the de-support date out twice already," said Jeff Henley, Oracle chief financial officer, during a media and analyst briefing Monday at OracleWorld. "We're not trying to alienate customers, but life moves on." Still, by urging companies to undertake an expensive upgrade during a sour economy, Oracle may be sowing seeds of resentment among its customers. Even companies planning to upgrade by June say they are not happy about the ultimatum Oracle has given them. "The June 30 date was seen as a saber-rattling tactic from Oracle and we did resent that," said Graebel's Tarkenton. Oracle is finding it increasingly difficult to provide support for release 10.7, said Cliff Godwin, senior vice president of 11i application development at Oracle. Because of employee turnover at Oracle, he said, the company has fewer people on staff skilled in the client/server technology on which 10.7 is built. But angry customers say it would cost Oracle far less to keep trained people on staff and to continue supporting 10.7 than it costs thousands of customers to rush an upgrade. "What Oracle is doing is looking out more for their own benefit than for the benefit of their customers," said Mike Oleson, an IT director at an aerospace manufacturing company who requested that the name of his company not be published. The company, he said, is the midst of planning its upgrade to 11i, but doesn't plan to switch on the new version until July of next year, meaning it will use the software for a brief period without technical support. Artificial Y2K?
Some see the upgrade push as a ploy on Oracle's part to boost its own consulting revenue as it battles declining sales this year. Much of the expense associated with upgrading to 11i goes toward consulting fees, and 18 percent of 115 companies surveyed by AMR Research earlier this year had chosen Oracle Consulting, the company's IT services arm, for the job. "Oracle has introduced a sort of artificial Y2K," said Stouffer, referring to the billions of dollars companies spent on consulting and new software in anticipation of computer bugs predicted to wreak havoc on the eve of 2000. On the other hand, Oracle doesn't want to give up lucrative maintenance contracts with 10.7 customers either. One company, General Cigar Company in New York, just renewed a year-long maintenance contract with Oracle this month, even though the company has no plans to migrate to 11i by June. "They weren't going to leave that money on the table," said Bob Russo, chief information officer of General Cigar. Russo said the value of the maintenance contract is a "significant sum" but declined to give an exact amount for how much General Cigar is spending on it. "I think this is a big game," Russo added. "They're being very ambiguous and not telling people the real deal, because they want to see how many people will come over to 11i." Complaints over 11i upgrades follow a bout of negative attention on Oracle. The company found itself in hot water earlier this year when the State of California cancelled a multimillion-dollar contract after a high-profile investigation by the state's audit committee. Faced with the bad publicity over that deal as well as over pricing changes that irked some customers, Oracle promised to turn over a new leaf. The company assigned a high-ranking executive to oversee an initiative to increase customer satisfaction. Larry Ellison, Oracle's chief executive, vowed to end the company's practice of last-minute discounting and to stick to standard pricing as a fairer way to deal with customers. To some customers, the company's stance on the 11i upgrade seems to run counter to recent moves to foster good will. Laura McDonald, business systems manager at Nikon Precision, a 10.7 customer and a subsidiary of the Japanese electronics maker in Belmont, California, said: "If they want to keep customers happy, this isn't the way."
More enterprise IT news in ZDNet UK's Tech Update Channel.
For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the Tech Update newsletter. Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
