SPARC and Solaris are finished, and the Cloud is a failure. So what's left for Oracle? Just be a database company again?
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There were some comments in a thread a while back that said they were going to give away java to some open source organization. That might be the reason for sacking everyone in that area. Perhaps they have no intention of keeping java.
They still have Java. Before they let me go, revenue was pretty good and we were one of the few Oracle products to actually be showing strong growth. But then they RIFed a ton of us, including our entire QA team. Looks like they even had to drop ARM from JDK 9. It sounds like all the JavaFX guys have been shown the door now as well. That can't be a good sign.
OP : Bingo!! but not the old DB-company we were used to see.
The new paradigma is of course cloud and autonomous sw, and the new strategy is a db-centric cloud-oriented plug&play elastic offering.
So question now is: how much of the old org is needed for the new Oracle? well, the writing is on the wall and it is very clear: very few people are needed in this scenario. How many? For sure not the multi-thousands people we have now under TK or MH. Expect in the next years a much slimmed down Oracle.
How long has Sears been around? Or IBM? Played the right way, a large company can be in decline for a very, very long time.
Oracle still has plenty of customers who are paying for support for products that work and aren't worth the time/trouble to replace. While Oracle's revenues are bound to take a hit as new on-premise licensing shrinks, the company is still very profitable and the layoffs are aimed to keep it that way for as long as possible. Database and SaaS still are areas of relative strength that Oracle can leverage to keep cash flowing. The areas where there could even be growth are with Netsuite and in overseas markets.
It isn't pretty in terms of the overall Oracle workforce, but the company can sustain a decline for quite a while and the executives can still pull in massive compensation packages.
Following the oath MH charted for HP - painful decline and death. IBM another analog. As for DB - declining market share there as well. Oracle has no future.