On 11 Sep 1997 06:20:01 GMT, "Azhar Chowdhury"
<azhar_at_mail.citechco.net> wrote:
>
>I am dedicated developer of Informix's tools. Recently local
>Oracle Consultant asked me to use Oracle 8 and leave
>Informix.
>
>Do anyoney any comments..
>
A few things to keep in mind:
- Oracle is not "software" - it is a way of life.
You don't just buy the software, you need training (even if you do
it yourself with books). It can require an expert just to install
and configure it, let alone make it do anything. Oracle has
put all of its effort into product development; things such
as ease of use, intuitive interfaces, client feedback, good
documentation all take the back seat. Your experience with
other software leads you expect many things to be more or less
automatic. With Oracle products nearly everything first
requires study.
- Oracle's customer support is weak. You usually have to stay on
hold for a long time and when someone finally answers you have to
hope that they know something about your operating system or
the product you're using. You can end up talking about VMS with
someone who has never seen a Digital machine or about Unix with
someone who doesn't have even an elementary idea of how Unix is
different from DOS. If you persist and call a few times you can
hit someone who knows exactly what you are talking about and
can give you the solution in a moment, which is highly gratifying.
In one day, I called with a question of how to do X and the first
Oracle support person told me that it couldn't be done. I called
again and another support person said, "We have a document on
how to do it; I'll fax it to you." This is typical. These
support people are accessing documents that would be highly
useful to clients but for some reason are for internal use
only; documents dealing with typical problems.
- Oracle has not yet discovered that it is doing business with
*people*. Unless they think you are going to buy something
you won't see or hear from anyone at Oracle. No one will
call and ask how it going, whether it's doing what you expected,
UNLESS they think they'll be able to sell you some consultant
time or another product.
- Oracle products are good, and they do perform as described,
but NOT OUT OF THE BOX. There can be a good long lag time
between (a) arrival of software, (b) installation,
(c) the software working well, (d) something useful happening.
- Oracle products are resource hogs. Clients can find themselves
obliged to invest in more potent hardware after they've put out
the money for Oracle software, installed it, started using it,
and hit serious performance problems.
The most important thing to keep in mind is the first point: that
Oracle is a way of life. You are not considering whether you
want to buy a piece of software: you are really asking yourself
whether you want to change the way you work. Changing to Oracle
is more like re-engineering than anything else.
Kevin Kelleher
Received on Thu Sep 11 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT
