Thread regarding Oracle Corp. layoffs

Given that the current trend, especially for some demographics, is that you job hop as frequently as once a year. I don't see how such hires will be more "loyal" than someone who has been at Oracle for years.

It could be that LE's original plan of conflict made sense to some degree, so long as the competition between groups was based on technical expertise.

But what has happened is that the competition no longer has anything to do with technical competence. Instead it manifests itself in dirty tricks, often against the most technically competent people. Those people then leave the company.

It's like at some point the competent technical people won and that created a resentment against anyone who was competent. It really feels that way, like the management actually resents the people working for them who know what they are doing.

Instead they reward the s----ups, that generally are not competent technically. Those people who are good at s---ing up to the manager are in general good at manipulating other people, because after all they are manipulating their manager by s---ing up to him. They have fun attacking other people and they hate the people who know what they are doing, since it makes them look bad by comparison.

Oracle is in a seriously sick state, particularly in the cloud area. Unless some serious cuts are made to the right people, they have no hope and the best manipulators are probably not the people who will be laid off.

Someone said, “When a new hire comes in then they're immediately loyal to the group they hire into. They also don't have baggage from other parts of the org and most certainly are not stuck in the process of the old part of the org.”.

Unless new hire is fresh out of school he/she carries baggage from the prior work. For fresh out of college hires there is huge ramp up time and in my experience ~50% would leave in about two years. All that investment in new hire is lost at that time. Now if they encourage internal transfers like they did small number in January they are willing to do anything for the new team. It takes time to learn new processes, management styles etc but they are more willing to help provided they are given full picture on where department is going.

I think there is lot to say about upper management style. If they want fierce competition and not cooperation then there is something seriously wrong with the company as the looser will pay the price but that loser is also part of Oracle an so oracle ends up paying the price too. I don’t get how this is helping anyone? The energy should be better spent fighting real competition which is in the market places with entire company from executive management down joining hands together.

I guess history will tell how company survives and how it’s name will be known for generations to comes. They way I see, Oracle brand name is no way close to Amazon, Microsoft, facebook, Apple, Google, IBM, Intel and other great companies. And the leaders of the company are also not in the know how due to perceived selfishness they represent. Only reason LJE may be known is due to his net worth, not because of his charitable foundation or due to his loving nature or due to his kindness to others. Same may also be said of other executives. I have never heard of any of them being reported to be helping poor or needy. I would love to read about their generosity and give them my respect.

“Oracle is a divisive environment. Groups are always in conflict and won't do anything to help each other. I think that if that were better handled and there were incentives from the management for groups to actually work with one another, it would help a lot.”

But Larry likes internal competition and thinks teams thrive on the conflict, which is where we get things like Linux vs Solaris, OPC vs BMC, etc. Someone must die for the rest to win.

"People transferring internally come with baggage and are not necessarily 100% have their eye on their new job. They may have loyalty to the old crowd and don't let go of those old relationships. They're also set in their ways and more often than not are unwilling to deviate from process in their old part of the org.

When a new hire comes in then they're immediately loyal to the group they hire into. They also don't have baggage from other parts of the org and most certainly are not stuck in the process of the old part of the org."

This comment about loyalty to the new group seems odd to me. Oracle is so divided, each group in competition with the next. I really think that is an Oracle thing. I used to work at IBM and I didn't see things like that. I know someone who works at HP and he doesn't see that there... several people he knows have moved around.

Oracle is a divisive environment. Groups are always in conflict and won't do anything to help each other. I think that if that were better handled and there were incentives from the management for groups to actually work with one another, it would help a lot.

Of course, once the system works that way and someone from one group has already attacked or sabotaged someone from another group, then everyone is pissed off permanently. So, there is probably no way to fix this issue. Too much baggage already.

"In other words, internal transfers working out are more often than not fails. Sure, there are exceptions to this but those tend to be few and far between"

FWIW, I've seen this work well at other corporations. Must be an Oracle thing,

"I also don't get why not redeploy those people? Most people I know who applied for other internal jobs were treated like lepers, hiring managers wouldn't even return their phone calls. It sure does reek of politics."

People transferring internally come with baggage and are not necessarily 100% have their eye on their new job. They may have loyalty to the old crowd and don't let go of those old relationships. They're also set in their ways and more often than not are unwilling to deviate from process in their old part of the org.

When a new hire comes in then they're immediately loyal to the group they hire into. They also don't have baggage from other parts of the org and most certainly are not stuck in the process of the old part of the org.

In other words, internal transfers working out are more often than not fails. Sure, there are exceptions to this but those tend to be few and far between

LJE decided to kill everything not related to cloud because the board made 100% of his & the CEO’s bonuses for this year and the next 5 (until 2022) dependent solely on meeting cloud revenue goals, so any money spent on anything non-cloud is an obstacle to their bonuses which must be eliminated with extreme prejudice ASAP.

JF went because LJE lost his sh-- at him for not getting his revenue per employee down as instructed. LJE told ES to go take care of it. LJE decided to kill everything that is not strategic to OPC because of the pivot to cloud. ZFSSA, Solaris and SPARC were all killed because of this. Pillar refocused to be internal only so no more external sales (not that it sold much anyway). Services being moved to Romania and India as the support contracts tail off and to reduce costs as they exit the on-prem market. TK has been culling his org as the Fusion transformation wraps up and fewer engineers are needed for cloud based services. A manager told me he'd heard talk that up to 50% of the combined R&D divisions would go.

"Cheapo newbies are the name of the game for LE, MH, and SC. Always looks better in the penny cheap, pound foolish spreadsheets to get rid of experienced people and hire new ones"

I seem to recall that at least in SCA that new college hires were/are paid better than many experienced engineers.

Basically the takeaway here, is that for the next year or so, layoffs will continue to go on at the same rate they have been.

Basically, experience is not valued. It's just numbers on a spreadsheet that count.

Cheapo newbies are the name of the game for LE, MH, and SC. Always looks better in the penny cheap, pound foolish spreadsheets to get rid of experienced people and hire new ones, ignoring productivity and the human side of things, of course. Stupid is a stupid does, that’s all there is to it.

"Storage RIF on August 3 was Q1. SPARC/Solaris RIF on Sep 1/Oct 31, WWOps RIF on Sep 28, and ongoing RIFs in services are Q2."

I wonder how much the Sept 1/Oct 31 RIFs will end up costing?

I also don't get why not redeploy those people? Most people I know who applied for other internal jobs were treated like lepers, hiring managers wouldn't even return their phone calls. It sure does reek of politics.

I think JF was let go in August and so he probably gets counted in Q1. Does anyone know what sort of golden parachute he landed with?

The restructuring cost could have been better spent retooling existing workforce instead of laying off loyal workforce in inhuman way andy then try to hire 5000 for the cloud business.

IMO, the Ex-Sun RIF smells like some sort of executive level feud causing everyone underneath to suffer. Looking at HW revenue and expenses in Q1 results I see over 500 mil in earnings not counting service. That’s lot of money and big margin too. I remember someone mentioning killing goose which is laying golden egg in past which I did not understand until I looked at the financial reports. There are many tech companies with revenue less that HW business at Oracle. I think letting SPARC HW go was probably some personal issue/Politics among EVPs and not really business issue since they could have figured out how to deploy redesigned/low power hungry SPARC into cloud. It was a surprise to me to see Oracle let that earning stream go and spend more money in severence / restructuring etc. I do see that focus is on Cloud and so anything that is not cloud is not the focus and is subject to lay off / closing devision down.

Wishing everyone impacted or to be impacted best of luck! I know there are better things out there. I constantly remind myself to let go my ties with Sun/Oracle but it’s hard to do due to the loyalty and hard work I put in there. But I do know better days are ahead of us all and remember to count blessings and be thankful for the sunny days many of us had!!!

Storage RIF on August 3 was Q1. SPARC/Solaris RIF on Sep 1/Oct 31, WWOps RIF on Sep 28, and ongoing RIFs in services are Q2.

"Look at it this way: That $124 million was mostly used for the Storage/Server/Solaris RIFs. So there are 3 to 4 more that size, impacting other parts of the company. So I'm guessing that another 10,000 RIFs will be coming."

I don't think that is correct. The original post came from a financial statement that includes the period from June 1 to August 31, 2017 (1st quarter FY18). The storage/server/Solaris RIF was on Sept. 1 and after, so not included in the 124 million spent in the 1st quarter, but would be applied to the 475 million remaining for the rest of FY18.

They might incur some layoff expenses in Q1 and not charge them until Q2 or Q3. E.g., they are not always able to avoid WARN thresholds so some money for health insurance goes out later. Some real estate terminations might take longer. So it might not be quite 4X as many layoffs to come this year, but still there must be a lot more coming.

I always view these restructurings as a way to hide losses and make the numbers look better than they really are.

total of systems people impacted in Q1 were around 2000. don't know about other LOB.

but I dont' think we can assume a 4x figure, since the cost of laying off people in EMEA is MUCH higher than in US, and Q1 was basically only US (and some India-APAC).

I think a 2x figure is more reasonable.

so if we assume a total of 2.5k-3k (including all the LOB in Q1) I would say another 5k-6k are to be laid off during FY18. this will impact heavily systems sales and presale, then TSR, and then all other non-cloud-related functions including SW lob.

good luck everyone.

At our OOW dinner our Sales manager gave a farewell speech and advice. Said it's coming soon and to prepare. #ERPRIP

Look at it this way: That $124 million was mostly used for the Storage/Server/Solaris RIFs. So there are 3 to 4 more that size, impacting other parts of the company. So I'm guessing that another 10,000 RIFs will be coming.

.... and I guess there is still another $400 million to go after fiscal 2018.

It looks like they spent $99 million in fiscal year 2017.

$124 million first quarter fiscal year 2018.

$475 million the rest of fiscal year 2018.

and the total budget is $1.1 billion (can be changes in future disclosures)

So that's another $400 million for fiscal year 2019? Maybe? or for something else.

" Restructuring expenses consist of employee severance

costs and may also include charges for duplicate facilities and other contract termination costs to improve our cost structure prospectively"

That says to me that $124 million went to layoff employees in 2018 Q1 and $475 million (4x that amount) is still to be used for the remainder of fiscal year 2018.

So, how many people were laid off in Q1 of fiscal year 2018? (June to August of this year)

There should be 4x that many people still to go.... at least that's how I understand it.

Wow