oracle-tchooze-fr

Oracle 11g is Green

2008-05-14T03:12:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this advertisement regarding Oracle 11G, nearly self labelled as 11 G Green, producing energy savings thanks to the "Green" compression technology, as less storage would be needed ?

This is so much in Oracle best expertise traditions, deploying a huge intelligence effort in marketing instead of doing the real hard work.

Despite significant savings efforts in Redwood Shores, Let's reckon much of the hard work is still to be done outside California, not the least internally, where no-one can say how much CO2 is generated from the internal travels.

Oracle Annoucement "Go Green with Fewer Disk Drives and Less Energy As seen in the Wall Street Journal and other major publications, Oracle is proud of the energy and space savings that Oracle Advanced Compression delivers. It helps Oracle Database 11g use much less the disk space and power, while it runs faster than ever before. With Oracle Advanced Data Compression, Oracle customers are making the planet a little greener"

See the interesting threads developpements "Green is not in Oracle vocabulary" , "Sorry Oracle : Green IT is for you too" from a Charles Philips interview, 11 G - "G" stands for Green or Greenbacks, Green is the new black,

Your comments are welcome.

For the records : Oracle Position - Beeing Green - Oracle High Tech Green Giant

BEA Oracle Acquisition - Change In Control

2008-04-30T03:51:00.000-07:00

Let's wish a big welcome to our new collegues of BEA, joining us as EU just released its approval regarding the merge.

Your comments are welcomed below.

BEA Acquisition closing

2008-04-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

Latest news from Reg Developper :
"Oracle's checks come as the company today cleared the latest hurdle in its proposed acquisition process. BEA shareholders on Friday voted to approve the deal, leaving just European Commission regulators to give the go ahead. The deal is expected close on April 30."

Sun / MySQL Acquisition : "Oracle is the only winner in this deal"

2008-01-21T01:02:00.000-08:00

An interesting opinion from JOHN DVORAK'S @ Marketwatch, with many comments.

"I'm close to being convinced that Oracle wanted to buy MySQL to kill the product, but knew that it couldn't pull off the stunt itself. It would be too obvious, especially to European Union regulators. So it sent in a stooge to do the job."

Oracle Salary raises stuck

2007-10-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

Non licence personal will have yet again to wait before seeing any salary increase for FY08.
Management annouced that these decisions will have to wait the Nov/December timeframe
For the first time in Oracle history, those salary raises will not be back ported to occur in September.
A good example on how to win 3 months in salary expenses credit.

Comprised Oracle UK Computers ?

2007-07-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

DenyHosts reports is pointing Oracle UK computers for running SSH Attacks ?
No word from the company yet.
Full Article on The Register.

Hyperion Acquisitions - No redundancies - (Yet ?)

2007-07-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

Following EMEA HR communication, The EWC consultation raises some doubts regarding the following statement

The EWC particularly appreciates that no redundancies in connection with the acquisition will be made ahead of the local subsidiary combinations.

Once again communication is the main concern as you will not be able to locate any EWC Rep internal website. Are we lacking internal communication facilities ?

EWC Special Meeting - France position

2007-07-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

The EWC special meeting due to take place next week will consider the Hyperion acquisition, the On Demand Reorganisation, and the EWC Kick off.
Regarding the On Demand reorganisation, the FR Rep mandate to be confirmed next week during the Local Work's Council meeting, should be as follows :

What are the employement perspectives in support within Europe and Egypt (existing positions, forcasts, country per country distribution, critical capabilities...)
From an expert perspectives, what are the sensible alternate projects ?
What are the projects economics - Revenue&Margin per country, Cost breakdown
What is the expected Return on Investments and associated business plan.
What are the quality sustaining processes. What are the existing figures ?
What are the minimal conditions offered to employees loosing their jobs EMEA wide ?
Will the associated costs be cross charged to Oracle Corp ?
What are the forseenable impacts on remaing employees "Compensation and Benefits" ?
What are the different scenarios regarding the possible social impacts ?
Country per Country Equity conditions regarding access to EMEA positions ?
Roumania On Demand hiring history details

We do expect the EWC to provide a detailled position regarding its position to the proposed collective redundancy. In fact, people are beeing made redundant by hiring new collegues in Roumania...

FR - No Country Kick-Off for support folks based outside Paris

2007-06-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

BE AMAZED... Corporate Campaign says...

As an Oracle employee I feel deeply ashamed by the first exclusion of support employees, based outside Paris, who are beeing refused their flight approval for the annual meeting.

Despite the Vision 2010 annoucement, sharing strategy, beeing one team seems no longer to be an Oracle value...

Trade and Immigration lobbying

2007-06-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Keeping inline with gouvernement regulations, and maybe influencing those regulations, Oracle hired a lobbying company services to back up its interests towards congress.

Read more

Support Folks - No travelling please - Ever (??)

2007-06-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome inside the support Matrix.

Different emails from management are heavily reminding support personnal that should never ever travel. In many cases personnal internal meetings are impratical, even for a yearly appraisal with your manager (???)
"The previous message included reference to face to face discussion which was incorrect, it is not a requirement to meet in person and is in many cases impractical in a global corporation."

Even Country kick off, physical off-site training are beeing covered by the heavy margin improvement-over-travelling goal.

Let's not forget that remote home working during normal work hours (and heavy traffic congestions) is still forbidden in many countries.

This makes the support Line of Business very much unaligned with Vision 2010, Corporate Social Responsability Energy Reduction Plan, training duties, and normal people management rules.

This sounds like going very very far in the savings, raising unhappy comments from employees.
What does the company expects in return for those cuts ?
Perhaps for more Employee headcount transfer towards Egypt ?

Where is my blue pill ?

Ex-Oracle VP to pay 198K$ to SEC for settlement

2007-05-23T13:10:00.001-07:00

Acquisitions may be very lucrative when you get the information first hand...
CNN, SEWNEBR

Oracle EWC - Negociations failed ?

2007-04-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

All Special Negociation Body representatives have tried hard to make Oracle European Work's Council a true vehicule to carry their interests in front of the management, in the spirit of the EU Directive.

However, the US Company management seems not to be in capability to cope with this level of initiatives from employees.

The following main hard issues could not be resolved :
- Consultation process and the possibility to consider employees points of view
- Transnational Events Triggering (how many people to dismiss before consulting ?)
- Agenda exclusion list - Too many items could not be brought towards management, especially when talking about employees' interests.

You may want to see the SNB expert letter sent as a compliance with expertise ethics .

Management has until May 11th to come back on these negociations before Oracle become the very first company in EU to run an EWC by law.

BIW Acquisition - Hyperion ?

2007-03-01T01:20:00.000-08:00

The news is massively spreading in the internet world.
Hyperion is about to be purchased by Oracle for 3.1 Billion Dollars, quite reaching the 3.4 Billions Dollars FY06 GAAP net income. This would mark a very significant move within the BI Space.
No official statement has yet been released within Oracle nor towards Employee Reps.

More informations : New York Times

Indian workers are rising

2007-02-09T05:52:00.000-08:00

You may be interested in recent moves in Bangalore, where Mahatma Gandhi country workers show they can raise to defend their social rights.
The social awareness process is under way...
More : January Strikes - Oct 2006 tech Strike

Oracle : Siebel Software developpers Over Time to be settled with 27.5 Million dollars

2006-11-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

A huge class action is beeing successful regarding a wage-and-hour lawsuit against ex Siebel Company.
Each one of the 800 software developpers will get around 27000 Extra dollars for these forgotten hours.

A similar case is also still running in France and due for judgment in Feb.
Read More...

Good job guys ! (Information Courtesy of CGT Oracle France Labor Union)

Yet an other aquisition - SPL Workgroup

2006-11-07T02:58:00.000-08:00

Following Portal Software, SunOpsis, Oracle announced an other Acquisition - SPL Workgroup aiming towards an end-to-end packaged revenue and operations management solution.

UK ruled as uncompliant regarding EU rest break rules

2006-11-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

The European Court of Justice as ruled a statement indicating the UK government is breaking the law by not forcing employers to give their staff rest breaks between shifts.
The UK transposition was considered as far too flexible, by stating the rules as indications but not enforcing them.

Finish presidency unveiled a plan to reduce this gap between UK and the rest of Europe (EU Observer).

This approach reminds of many Oracle statements regarding the need for better employee relations and representativity, at a time where :
- The Oracle EWC is still negociated by EU HR as a "tea and biscuits conversation body with mgmt"
- Many countries still miss their local Worker's Council
- A very active labor union delegate in France from CFDT is under an unfair layoff procedure attempt, only aiming at reducing employee representation.

More informations : Europe Observatory - BBC News - Herald Tribune -

Yet an other acquisition - MetaSolv

2006-10-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Following the Portal purchase, yet an other telco business is beeing acquiered.
The announcement is available on Metasolv Web site. (FYI The link is ASP !)

Oracle is rolling out its Employee Assistance Program

2006-10-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Seen on the corporate site, and localized within Europe with FGIworld and Eupora consulting, Oracle is planning to roll-out its plan to assist employees or their family under personal and/or professional stress, by allowing free anonymous external meetings with psycho professionals.
The announced goal is to "manage the mental, social and physical health of their employees and families to reduce the huge productivity costs of absence and underperformance on the job".
Those attentions towards employees are a good move, but our labor organization would have prefered a more careful approach beforehand, by considering work organisation and workload factors.
We can help...

Corporate Site Annoucement : To help you address problems that threaten to upset the stability of your life at home or at work, the Oracle Employee Assistance Program offers referral services and confidential, personal assessment. EAP services may help with stress, depression, difficulties with children, divorce, alcohol abuse, drugs, job worries, marital, financial, or legal problems. The EAP is staffed by licensed professionals from the fields of psychology, clinical social work, and counseling. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An experienced intake specialist will arrange a confidential appointment with an EAP counselor. Services are free for up to three visits per family member per concern annually.

Oracle France General Manager Leaving...

2006-09-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

Following recent troops movements, followed by lieutenants departures in many sales divisions, the French General Manager announced he was also on his way out...
Couldn't find a place in this new deploying organization, blowing out country levels and managers, and aimed towards a "bright future".
However... His last words were "good luck"...

Siebel : On Target Sold to TAS

2006-07-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

On June 30, 2006 Select Selling acquired the majority of the global assets of OnTarget - the sales methodology division of Oracle Corporation - to form The TAS Group. From July 1, the combined business will operate as The TAS Group. The transaction did not include France or Italy, and the OnTarget businesses in those countries will continue to operate as they did before the acquisition.

On June 30th, France Worker's council was forced to ask management to draw back on the automatic French employee transfer as no guarantee was stated regarding their future in the new company.

Company Global Responsability - Pure Marketing ?

2006-06-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

The "Oracle Corporate Citizenship Report" has now been publicly released on Oracle main web site.
We support the goals announced in this document but we have some heavy doubts regarding local implementations in the countries, and corporate approach of charities direct transposability within Europe.
As an example, handicapped people hiring is still handled with a hand on the heart, but no positive action (see previous press release).
More important, June 5th is, by law, dedicated in France to solidarity working financement, with French employees working at no extra charge. This solidarity day should be used to go within schools, hospitals, instead of usual customers !

Admirable Personnal Investments of employees should be shared with company investments. We regret to see this is clearly not the case for now.

We request our company to :
- Dedicate ressource on shared time investments for charity programs.
- Elaborate responsability programs with local labor unions.
- Fix precise goals and timeframes to hire handicapped people.
- Stop playing with employee reps by letting the clock run and really negociate a living European Work's Council, including Switzerland

We encourage all employees World Wide to give feedback in the comment link below.

France Facing its destiny ?

2006-04-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

You will find a very interesting analysis "from abroad" from the Economist regarding the pains of changing France way of thinking job rules. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6744226

As a leading Labor organisation, we want to stress we admit the need for changes, but we want to be part of the process. We are sure we can be a real partner by giving our opinions, sharing points of view, and take our responsabilities for a signature. We want to have workers taking part in the road setting, instead of having them pushed the hard way through an unknown road..

Works Council : Oracle & SAP on the same line ?

2006-03-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

Oracle European Workers Council negociations, initiated in March 2004 on France Labor Union request still have a long way to go before the final go live due in March 2007, according to the maximum 3 years timeframe allowed by the EU EWC directive.

The negociations fail to succeed at the moment on the following points :
- What is a transnational event that needs to trigger an EWC meeting ?
- Can employee raise questions regarding Terms & Employement conditions ?
- EWC Termination, amendments or continuity terms.

Seen as cumbersome bureaucracy, instead of valuable feedback and shared benefits for both employees and management, work's councils are seen as the new devils that take away agility and responsiveness.

These questions are especially emphasized at SAP, where the management requests employees to reject a work council creation : http://www.hopp-info.de/index_e.html
Depending on the results, the headquarter German location may be questionned...

However, history in Oracle has shown us that relocations and lay off plans do not wait Works' councils to happen.

Hold-on SAP employees, like Oracle ones, you need to voice your opinions, invent alternatives, instead of just implementing. That's just what agility is about...