A decade ago when you traveled overseas, you dreaded taking a foreign airline - because more likely than not you ended up with old equipment like the DC-8 I flew across the Indian Ocean on Kenya Airways. Today, though many upstart airlines around the globe have the latest Boeing and Airbus gear - in fact, in age most of them are younger than US airline fleets. Translates to more efficient, safe and passenger-comfortable planes.
So, I see Oracle bragging about how well it is aggregating all its application acquisitions, and I say why should customers like this airline which keeps buying 15 year old 727s instead of investing in new 737-800s? In a world where SaaS models have shown to be far more efficient delivery models, Oracle keeps on expanding its on-premise stable and keeps going retro.
If I was competing with Oracle (and IBM for that matter since it also acquires aging software companies), I would run a Budweiser type "Born On Date" campaign. Brian Sommer would prefer an expiration date.
Because freshness matters in airlines, in beer - and in software.
Update: Just realized my international readers would benefit from a bit more explanation. “Skunky” beer, “freshness” and “Born on Date” were sound bites from the Anheuser-Busch campaign a few years. It was pretty effective particularly against their foreign beer competition (with longer delivery times). Not only was marketing campaign successful, it helped cleaned up their distributor supply chain …armed with the easy-to-read "Born on date" old beer in corners of remote warehouses started declining…
