BEA Acquisition closing

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"

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

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 ?

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 ?)

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

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 :

1. What are the employement perspectives in support within Europe and Egypt (existing positions, forcasts, country per country distribution, critical capabilities...)
2. From an expert perspectives, what are the sensible alternate projects ?
3. What are the projects economics - Revenue&Margin per country, Cost breakdown
4. What is the expected Return on Investments and associated business plan.
5. What are the quality sustaining processes. What are the existing figures ?
6. What are the minimal conditions offered to employees loosing their jobs EMEA wide ?
7. Will the associated costs be cross charged to Oracle Corp ?
   What are the forseenable impacts on remaing employees "Compensation and Benefits" ?
8. What are the different scenarios regarding the possible social impacts ?
9. Country per Country Equity conditions regarding access to EMEA positions ?
10. 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

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

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 (??)

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

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

Oracle EWC - Negociations failed ?

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 ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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.