Gabriel Consulting Unveils Key Findings of New Oracle Survey
Enterprise Unix customers speak out about the company’s Itanium announcement
BEAVERTON, Oregon – April 25, 2011 — Gabriel Consulting Group (GCG), an independent analyst firm, today released key findings from its “What’s Up With Oracle?” survey, which is focused on Oracle’s recent decision to discontinue porting new versions of their software to Intel’s Itanium processor. The survey was conducted among enterprise IT professionals responsible for data centers of all sizes and had 450 respondents.
Survey results released today cover the “Why Did Oracle Drop Itanium?” section of the survey, which asks customers what they believe were the real reasons behind Oracle’s move against HP and Intel. Results include:
- An overwhelming number of customers (77%) “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” that Oracle’s action is a “competitive move to kill HP’s HP-UX and NonStop products.”
- A slightly larger number (79%) see Oracle dropping Itanium as the “first step in an Oracle plan to put all competitors at a disadvantage vs. Oracle hardware products.”
- Only 10% of respondents disagreed with either of the above statements.
“Oracle is one of the most widely used and important ISVs in enterprise computing. Their database and application packages are mission-critical in many organizations, so they have a lot of power,” said Dan Olds, Principal Analyst at GCG. “With their Itanium decision, customers see Oracle using this power as a club against a competitor. They don’t view this as an isolated case, but as part of an Oracle strategy that will extend to other competitive products.”
Many enterprise customers also cited financial motivations. Almost two out of three believe that Oracle will now raise license and support costs for Itanium customers who don’t move their Oracle workloads to non-Itanium systems.
In explaining their decision, Oracle alleges that Intel told them that they will be end-of-lifing Itanium soon; Intel claims that they’re standing behind the processor for at least two more generations. We asked our respondents who they believe:
- Just 29% agreed with the statement, “I believe Oracle…” Almost half disagreed.
- Half agreed with the statement, “I believe Intel…” Only 16% disagreed.
“Customers just don’t buy Oracle’s version of the truth on the Itanium deal,” said Olds. “While they don’t universally believe Intel, the majority are taking Intel at its word in terms of Itanium. Customers always have a certain level of vendor distrust – it’s natural, and often merited. But with Oracle, it’s at a very high level right now. Further results from the survey make it clear that Oracle isn’t on many (if any) customer ‘Favorite IT Vendor’ lists right now.”
GCG will be releasing more findings from its “What’s Up With Oracle?” survey in the next few weeks. More information and detailed results are available here . Follow Dan Olds on Twitter @danolds.
About Gabriel Consulting Group
Gabriel Consulting Group is a research, analysis, and consulting firm dedicated to helping clients achieve maximum return on their Information Technology investment.
###
Contact: Dan Olds
503-372-9389 Office
503-730-5072 Mobile