Talk to most Oracle larger customers and there is wariness. Talk to its bigger competitors and there are harsher words. But a funny thing happens when you talk to smaller vendors which work in the Oracle ecosystem.
One such vendor recently called Oracle “mature” compared to other large software vendors they deal with. I have heard similar comments from many of Oracle’s smaller systems integration partners. Oracle could crush them if it chooses to, but has a much more benevolent approach towards smaller firms. It shows in their presence at the annual Oracle OpenWorld (next week in San Francisco)
During the meltdown of 2001-2003, I heard from many entrepreneurs (and witnessed first hand in my own start up), Oracle was much easier to renegotiate with than other tech vendors.
More recently as it has been scouring for acquisitions the last 5 years, Oracle has become an exit for many smaller companies.
Bully to bigger companies, good guy to smaller ones. There must be a description for that. For now, I guess we will live with “mature” as the description.
