Thread regarding Oracle Corp. layoffs

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Update

Over the past month, several of us have been able to piece together some of what is transpiring, despite the fact that our workgroup is not based in the US. Some of this remains rumour, but much is already confirmed and underway. Oracle is, as always, slow to address any of this internally or externally, but rest assured Trained Oracle Spin Monkeys are working overtime to hone their razor-sharp messaging, and a glorious onslaught is planned for January.

Confirmed: Solaris 12 is dead. Some (not all) of the newer Solaris work will be pushed into Solaris 11 "dot releases", starting with 11.4 next year. Solaris priorities going forward: support Cloud, ZFS and ZFSSA, and other tactical initiatives. OpenStack support is relegated now to 'client-only', and Docker will likely never come to fruition in Solaris. General-purpose Solaris and general-purpose SPARC-based server systems are now second-level priorities; expect both to trail off over the next two to three years.

Attempting to shove partially-cooked, disparate pieces of an unfinished major OS release into a minor OS release will be, as can be expected, messy. Full of sound and fury, signifying restructuring, and the continuing gnashing of teeth is full-tilt this weekend, even as this is written.

Confirmed: The successor to the SPARC S7 chip (codenamed 'Sonoma Next' or 'S8') has been shelved indefinitely, as have plans for any systems based on that chip. Current S7-based systems will continue to be sold for now.

Confirmed: SPARC M8 and M9 chips are unaffected for now, and systems based on those are still on schedule - just expect fewer models and fewer options. Expect M-series chips to power the tiny Solaris corner of Oracle's Cloud, not S-series.

Confirmed: Linux "two dot oh" (including Linux on SPARC) was given the go-ahead by Mssr Fowler last month; it will provide the basis for all Oracle Public Cloud "control planes" going forward; Solaris "guest VMs" are still planned as of this writing.

Confirmed: Engineered Systems continue on, to eventually be folded into OPC as Cloud Machines and then Cloud Services.

Still Unclear: The future of Oracle's X86-based systems. Lively execu-level debate on this topic continues, apparently.

Confirmed: Systems customers and 'partners' (see below) will soon be told that they need to (read this in Ahnold's voice) Get Their Asses to the Oracle Cloud. Or else.

Confirmed: Systems' priorities going forward: 1) Cloud, 2) Cloud, 3) Cloud, 4) ZFSSA, 5) Solaris 11 "dot releases", 6) Updating everyone's CV

Confirmed: Systems' hardware and software partners will only be seen as important to Oracle in tactical situations. Or if they resell our products. All right, all right, to be honest what we just stated has been true since Oracle bought Sun, but now Oracle won't try to pretend quite so much. We think.

Confirmed: There are four classes of employee in Systems as of this week: 1) Notified they are probably 'safe' for the moment; 2) Pushed to relocate to other parts of Oracle; 3) Already notified of termination (several China-based Solaris groups, for example); 4) Totally in the dark (meaning that they are likely on the lists turned over to HR this week for termination next month). We have also heard of several key Solaris engineers who have already chosen to leave Oracle of their own accord.

Confirmed: Morale in Oracle Systems Division is at an all-time low. Outside the US (where things can develop much more slowly), we're mostly in the dark and apprehensive. "Continue with your assigned duties," we're told. These are not cheerful times around the office. Concern, anger, hopelessness and confusion all smoulder close to the surface. The most likely scenario at this point has targeted employees not being informed of their demise for at least another 3-5 weeks, so Happy Christmas to us all!

Still Unclear: The extent of near-term terminations. The fifty percent figure actually seems a bit high to us at present, although perhaps the sum of layoffs plus attrition plus reassignment could come close to that. Some organisations will be eliminated, while others are likely to be virtually unaffected for now. Check back with us next summer, won't you?

By the by, in case anyone was curious about something Mssr Hurd failed to mention during Thursday night's earnings call, Oracle Q2 hardware revenue was off another 10% (year over year) to US$1B. In case the "Why" component of all this remains in doubt.

We miss you, Scott.

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| 106861 views | | 148 replies (last December 4, 2018)
Post ID: @OP+KTCW4qz

148 replies (most recent on top)

maybe because it has been one of the most informative and correct post here, light years ahead of what is today the level f the posts in this board.

S12 to S11.4 : confirmed

OpenStack dead, no Docker : confirmed

SPARC/Solaris servers dead : confirmed

S8 dead : confirmed

get customers on cloud or death : confirmed

systems' priorities : perfectly confirmed :-)

we miss you Scott : totally, absolutely, fully confirmed

only things wrong

M9 : cancelled

50% near term terminations : not confirmed, has been much more, close to 100% in SPARC and IB eng for example.

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Post ID: @bzche+KTCW4qz

Current rumor is that ZFSSA is toast. More engineering cuts, the rest of product management, half of product marketing ...

Nothing happened. Fake news.

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Post ID: @6chwk+KTCW4qz

Current rumor is that ZFSSA is toast. More engineering cuts, the rest of product management, half of product marketing now gone.

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Post ID: @4ueai+KTCW4qz

OP, do you have any more updates from your last posting?

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Post ID: @42gux+KTCW4qz

85841 views - hahahaha - oh Oracle, cannot hide anything anymore

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Post ID: @42ccz+KTCW4qz

Sailing off in the sunset to happily live of the tens of millions he made at oracle doing nothing of value

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Post ID: @3Uduc+KTCW4qz

Fowler leaves. Anyone knows where is he going?

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Post ID: @3Sfoe+KTCW4qz

As the OP of this thread (and still at Oracle), I can confirm change is already happening inside former Oracle Systems, and even bigger changes coming over the next few weeks. Many 'Systems' orgs are totally in the dark as to what will transpire - those will be the ones hit hardest. Extent and nature of changes really are unknown to most of us.

I'm thinking SPARC and Solaris will soldier on in some degraded capacity. We shall indeed see, won't we?

My one comment is that the All-Company meeting a few weeks ago was likely preparation for the carnage to come...

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Post ID: @3Ovuo+KTCW4qz

Sparc is dead let it go.

Whatever advantage they may still have had a few years ago is long gone.

Not competitive by any measure.

Who else is doing sparc? Fujitsu?

Stick a fork in solaris, it's done.

It will survive in the computer museum and may linger around in some legacy applications.

Solaris had their chance to be what Linux is today, but Sun was a day late and a dollar short in opening up the code and when O. took over, they eradicated that hoop dream completely.

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Post ID: @2Tvku+KTCW4qz

This is a really sad story, I wish there was a way to save Solaris

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Post ID: @2pgpf+KTCW4qz

I learned to be an SA with Solaris, starting in 1995. Over the years I watched it's decline as Linux matured. I also learned that the open source community was way more valuable as an SA when it came to fixing bugs, getting help, etc.

I will not miss Solaris in the least bit.

_ Kevin

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Post ID: @Yuja+KTCW4qz

Claim is STK tape dead, anyone has details?

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Post ID: @Ftno+KTCW4qz

"Oracle laying off hundreds in Santa Clara"

Oracle this week moved to lay off about 450 employees in its Santa Clara hardware systems division, according to a letter sent to the Employment Development Department.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/20/oracle-lays-off-450-employees/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1484954556

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Post ID: @ztbi+KTCW4qz

Lots of folks let go everywhere in US, a very small fraction in APAC. No clue about UK.

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Post ID: @yipk+KTCW4qz

Anything happened in Burlington and Santa Clara ?

Seems to be radio silent there.

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Post ID: @xpxo+KTCW4qz

Yep.. it happened. Lots of movements of bits and pieces to other areas (mostly Linux and LDoms) and lots of people are let go.

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Post ID: @xyja+KTCW4qz

Thursday seems to be Layoff day

I was in one Thursday 08/18/2016

involving a few hundred per document provided

in package

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Post ID: @wbvb+KTCW4qz

Lots of my teammates and myself have been asked to meet managers tomorrow. So, this is it !

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Post ID: @wyee+KTCW4qz

My mgr scheduled a 15min 1-1 tomorrow (I am in Solaris group). So I guess, its happening

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Post ID: @wlxe+KTCW4qz

looks like it's coming true!

see the latest SPARC and Solaris road map posted today.

http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc/oracle-sparc/sparc-roadmap-slide-2076743.pdf

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Post ID: @winm+KTCW4qz

This is the oldest story in technology. Hell, I remember it when I worked at Wang Labs! If you're young, find a newer technology and this will be the best thing that ever happened to you. If you're old, good luck! If you're somewhere in the middle, seriously think about going back to school and rebooting your career.

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Post ID: @smic+KTCW4qz

The way this is being handled is very bad. Different orgs have different approaches on what is being disclosed. Some folks know they are going to be let-go, and their counterparts in other org have no clue whatsoever. At least be gracious enough to inform folks 1 month before they are let go , so that they can start looking for jobs, and cut them free from their day to day duties for the last month. With morale being low, it doesnt seem squeezing that extra work in the last month has any value whatsoever.

Anyways, sayonara Solaris. I truly loved you ! So much better , stable then linux, although in the last few years had become too geeky for GPOS, and of-course couldn't scale in cloud.

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Post ID: @kaai+KTCW4qz

@KTCW4qz-jfbt:

Storage is definitely not going to be affected. They are the money makers in the whole acquisition arena. Both ZFSSA and Pillar make money, and they serve their own niche market, with Pillar focusing on flash storage.

BTW, Pillar is LE's personal investment, so I doubt anything will happen to it. ZFSSA is really popular due to its competitive pricing, so I also doubt anything will happen to it. Solaris will be minimized to only serve for ZFSSA need, that is, if ZFSSA isn't moving to Linux.

STK? Who cares about tapes?

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Post ID: @kryc+KTCW4qz

None I mean NONE of the companies Oracle merged with were ever "integrated".

The managers protected themselves, as is human nature. The amount of time wasted in useless meetings at Oracle boggle the mind. The matrix management style due to the overhang of management .vs. the actual engineers dying actual work is about 80/20. Similar to other "great" organizations. Best of luck.

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Post ID: @khoh+KTCW4qz

Apparently made the news. STK Tape dead - 1969-2017 RIP, quite a run for an old technology.

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Post ID: @jvbi+KTCW4qz

Don't feel too bad every tech company is going through this same thing. Go ask Intel employees and former. It's a sign of the times. Changing times and change is hard. Time to make new plans.

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Post ID: @jowg+KTCW4qz

Will Storage be affected by this RIF? If so, which area of Storage is most likely to be affected?

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Post ID: @jcxp+KTCW4qz

Don't get mad, get even: contact media and the Pres elect and let them know what's happening :)

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Post ID: @jtze+KTCW4qz

-jwqm

Finda job. Didn't you learn in kindergarten the world is not fair. No one is going to hold your hand through this. Didn't you get paid a lot in your years at Oracle? Did you save? Did your house appreciate in value? You benefited as much as any manager. It's understandable you are angry but at the end of the day its your responsibility and no one else's to sustain yourself and your family. Not LE or any other CEO.

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Post ID: @jdmh+KTCW4qz

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