I believe it's more complicated than that — probably transactions that happened *after* the upgrade that they now need to reconcile manually.

The theory would explain why Netflix seemed to know it received DVD returns from particular customers, but can't figure out what next from the queue to ship. (Photo by AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Looking for FreshGrads Only in Oracle's EBS Integrations Group

Hello Everyone,

We have multiple openings for our newly formed EBS Integrations group at Oracle but we have a restriction to hire only fresh graduates from outside. So if you know someone who has just graduated and willing to join Oracle, please send me a copy of their resume.

Here is the job desc:
—-—-—-—-—-—--

Group: EBS Integration Development Team

Description:

Newly formed EBS Integration Group is currently looking for bright and talented people to deliver EBS solutions for various Process Integration Packs (PIPs). As a member of our staff you will be playing a vital role in designing, implementing and supporting the integration packs for Business processes defined by AIA team. If you are looking for an opportunity to enhance your skills and work on latest cutting edge technologies like WebServices, BPEL Process manager, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) , XML and XSL then we will provide you that opportunity.

Candidate should be a self-starter, smart thinker and able to find information from vast Oracle information resources.

We currently have multiple openings in HQ and IDC.

* Design, Develop and support EBS integrations (ERP and CRM) with various products like Seibel, Psft, Glog, Retek, and Portal etc.

* Ability to quickly learn and contribute, solve complex problems and meet aggressive time deadlines.

* Ability to quickly grasp other products as position requires working in multiple product areas of EBS like Financials, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, CRM etc

* Willing to interact with AIA group, Product Strategy and Product management as position involves working with various cross- functional global teams in US and India.

* Understanding of SOA concepts is a plus.

* Understanding of (all or some) BPEL PM, ESB, Web Services, Java, Jdeveloper, pl/sql and XML is a plus.

* Understanding of EBS Financials, Customers, Supply Chain, Products, ALM, Order Management and CRM is a plus.

Over 200 big corporate customers like the American Red Cross and Southern California Edison are now without an alternative to Oracle's legendarily steep support fees. At the same time, SAP announced a new fee structure that fixes support costs at 22 percent of the original purchase price, compared to TomorrowNow who simply charged half of whatever Oracle did. Oracle in turn announced a 15-20 percent increase in support fees for U.S. customers. Hey, everybody wins!

If you're not familiar with IT at the big-corporation scale, enterprise software support fees are huge extra payments tacked on to any major software purchase for a large company — paying 22 percent of the original license, annually, isn't unusual. These fees in theory cover the cost of application support, patches and upgrades. Here's what's happening with Oracle: Big corporations trying to deal with a stalled economy are held in a stranglehold by application providers like Oracle, who can charge a lot for ongoing support because it's still cheaper than changing applications for 3,500+ users.

A newer option for enterprise customers is SaaS — software as a service. Instead of being installed on the customer's computes, the app is maintained on a Web server owned by the vendor. SaaS supposedly lowers the customer's infrastructure cost — no servers to own or maintain — and makes it easier for them to switch brands if they're not happy. But switching apps isn't free or easy if you're the electric company. Who's going to pay for TomorrowNow's shutdown? Probably you.

Limited Brands CEO Leslie Wexner, for example, spent much of his $1.25 million 2007 security allowance toward "protecting" his corporate aircraft, yacht and 22,371-sq. ft. home. "Security has become a convenient excuse for getting shareholders to pick up the cost for the CEO's lifestyle,' corporate watchdog American Federation of State's director of corporate governance and pension investment told the Wall Street Journal. (Illustration by Richard Blakeley)

From: Rob Haralson
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 8:30 AM
To:
Subject: Google-Yahoo!

Hope all is well. There is a lot of information floating around about a possible transaction between Google and Yahoo!, and - as a consultant to Google - I wanted to provide you with some interesting quotes from a couple of recent articles exploring competition issues related to a potential deal.

"Straightforward Supplier Arrangement" with Parallels to Other Industries

"The approach the DoJ will take in evaluating a search-outsourcing deal will be different than evaluating a full-blown merger, an industry attorney said. Unlike mergers or business combinations where the acquirer is getting full operational control of an entity, this arrangement is likely to be reviewed as an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) relationship or a commercial one, he explained." - "Google-Yahoo: Anti-trust regulators to focus on commercial arrangements versus outright take over, source says" - dealReporter, May 16, 2008

"People involved in shaping Google's approach say the deal under consideration would be a straightforward supplier arrangement, similar to ones in the markets for computer printers, appliances and cell phone service.

"The printer industry, they say, is a perfect example. Canon supplies printer engines to about 80 percent of the laser printer market, including its rival Hewlett-Packard. They point to many others, including Whirlpool making appliances for Sears, AT&T licensing its mobile network to Virgin and other small carriers, Toyota selling hybrid engines to General Motors and Microsoft tailoring its Office software for Apple computers." - "Google Says It Will Defend Competitive Rationale of a Yahoo Deal" - New York Times, May 22, 2008

DOJ and FTC Have Endorsed "Co-opetition" Arrangements

"In its antitrust guidelines for partnerships among competitors, issued in 2000, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission said: 'In order to compete in modern markets, competitors sometimes need to collaborate. ... Such collaborations are not only benign but pro-competitive.'" - "Google Says It Will Defend Competitive Rationale of a Yahoo Deal" - New York Times, May 22, 2008

"...if one company has a more efficient technology than the other, with one wanting to outsource to the other, a deal can be structured that still leaves a lot of independent competition, the industry attorney explained." - "Google-Yahoo: Anti-trust regulators to focus on commercial arrangements versus outright take over, source says" - dealReporter, May 16, 2008

Deal Likely to be "Easily Approved" by U.S. Regulators

"'If there were a deal [with Yahoo], we would anticipate structuring the deal to address the antitrust concerns that have been widely discussed,' [Eric] Schmidt said." - "Google execs hope for long-term ad deal with Yahoo" - Associated Press, May 8, 2008

"These collaborative deals tend to be easily approved by American antitrust authorities, and Google presented the Yahoo plan as such a deal in response to initial inquiries by the Justice Department.

"'There is nothing in antitrust law that says a company can't use the best technology,' said one person involved in confidential discussions of the deal. 'It can't be bad for competition to help a company become more efficient.'" - "Google Says It Will Defend Competitive Rationale of a Yahoo Deal" - New York Times, May 22, 2008

Deal Likely to be Non-Exclusive, Reducing Antitrust Risk

"The arrangement currently under consideration would be a non-exclusive arrangement in which Google would allow Yahoo to use selected ad technologies but would not be structured as a 100% outsourcing deal, the source familiar said. This is an important aspect of the deal as Yahoo would continue to use its technology for some search queries and maintain a search capability. The company would also have the ability to use the information gained from the arrangement to perfect its algorithms and improve its systems, the source said." - "Google-Yahoo: Anti-trust regulators to focus on commercial arrangements versus outright take over, source says" - dealReporter, May 16, 2008

In summary, the reports indicate that:

- Any deal between Google and Yahoo! would be non-exclusive;
- The deal looks to be similar to those in which companies provide competitors with complementary services or technologies; and
- The Department of Justice has approved similar deals in the past.

The negotiations between the two companies are ongoing, so more details may be emerging over the course of the next several days and weeks. If you'd prefer not to receive more emails about this, please let me know. Alternatively, I am happy to provide you more information at your request.

Best,
Rob Haralson

—-—
Rob Haralson | Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter, and Associates

For starters, more Web applications mean more pages running Google-brokered ads. App Engine also runs on Google's preferred programming language, Python, not PHP or Ruby — meaning the developers of tomorrow now know definitively what scripting environment to work in, and the company's talent pool will grow. But ZDnet might have the winning theory: it will make the cost of acquiring startups much lower for Google.

Take YouTube, for example. The company succeeded partly on the merits of being able to keep its databases running. While other video sharing services wilted under their popularity, while YouTube remained online. But once Google purchased YouTube, it had to invest engineers and time into translating the company's backend into something that would work in their other systems. Next time, the transition will be nearly seamless.

So for the startup ecosystem, developers can either go Google or go elsewhere. And if they go Google and build something successful, there will be a threshhold of traffic where they'll be presented with two choices — either pay to play on Google's servers, or sell to Google. In any but the first scenario, Google is all up in your balance sheet. Doesn't look good for Amazon.com and Oracle, which powers Amazon's SimpleDB.

In January, he started hounding us to cover the story, by then seven months old, of Bharosa's sale. At one point, he emailed us his bio, which was very informative about Fisher's college extracurriculars.

Jon was a freshman starter on the Vassar College basketball team but opted to discontinue his Division III career in favor of starting his first company in Silicon Valley.

Last July, the Golden Gate Yacht Club sued Cup defenders Société Nautique de Genève [PDF], accusing the Swiss of hand-picking an unqualified challenger, the newly formed Club Náutico Español de Vela. The Deed of Gift, which outlines the terms and rules of the race, requires that a challenging club hold an annual regatta — CNEV held a regatta, with boats crewed by children, only after being selected as challenger.

Now it's SNG's turn to accuse the GGYC of trying to tilt the field. GGYC wants the race to be held in October, giving the Alinghi team only seven months to build their boat. The BMW Oracle team, meanwhile, started building their multi-hulled vessel three months ago. SNG wants the race held in 2009, and says that the GGYC originally agreed that any race would be held ten months after the legal decision had been handed down [PDF].

We are disappointed that GGYC is backtracking on this agreement and launching a new legal campaign seeking to undo what GGYC previously agreed to. Why not simply meet us on the water and settle this there?

I have to tell you Steve, I frankly think you show too much. Have you ever seen me jumping up and down in a monkey-dance, red-faced, out of breath, screaming, "I ... LOVE ... THIS ... COMPANY?" You need to be more Zen, cool, calm and collected, like ageless me.

Fake Larry continues:

Steve, you wear your heart on your sleeve. Bad move. A favorite phrase of mine from The Art of War is "All warfare is based on deception."

It would seem that no one else is interested in Yahoo and you may prevail in this costly battle that will drain your cash. If it goes to a proxy battle, the insults will fly. I never cared about that, because I believe in myself and only myself.

And if you win government approval, then your hell has only just begun. It can only be messy, especially as you try to decide things like Yahoo [Mail] or Hotmail? I hope those decisions will keep you forever occupied.

It would also be a brutal comeuppance for Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, who had a very public tiff with Ellison, for whom he worked at Oracle and once idolized. Benioff has since championed a "no software" marketing campaign aimed straight at Oracle; unlike Oracle's offerings, Salesforce.com does not require the installation of software. Selling to Oracle would require eating a lot of crow. Then again, if Benioff actually gets that price, it would cement his reputation as a consummate salesman. Perhaps that's worth an uncomfortable swallow. (Photo by Robert Scoble)

The irony is that BEA rose to prominence on the notion that its application server would make things simpler for database buyers. Buy any database you'd like, and BEA's application server would connect to it. Likewise, MySQL grew as a cheaper, open-source alternative to databases from IBM and Oracle.

A database here, an application server there, a bit of open-source software on top of that all sounds nice in theory. It proved in practice to be a headache for the influential tech buyers at large corporations. One salesperson calling on them, one phone number to dial when things went wrong, it turns out, is what they really wanted.

The consolidation was inevitable, if perhaps a bit sad. The goal of the stack game is to make sure that your software is the layer on top — the one that matters to programmers, the one applications are designed for. BEA and MySQL both had grand ambitions in that regard. Those are now coming to an end. Sun and Oracle will no doubt make grand statements about how compatible their software is, how well their children play with others. Ignore those. The history of IT tells us those promises are false.

I am concerned that I may be giving up my youth, my right as a 21 year-old to be an irresponsible idiot from time to time.

Drunk dialing Dad in Paris after 3 bottles of Dom.

SimpleDB lacks some of the most basic features of "relational" databases, the entrenched enterprise products which pay the salaries of those pasty sysadmins who natter on for hours about stored procedures and triggers when you just want them to run a report. As Uncov has smartly observed, SimpleDB is 18 times less efficent than other databases.

But that's not a bug, that's a feature. Amazon has designed a database which transmits data inefficiently, and then charges users by the amount of data transmitted. The MBA who put together this business plan deserves a raise. This isn't a database; it's a Ponzi scheme. One designed to transfer money from venture capitalists to Amazon.

So who's the patsy? Well, startups who have already gotten hooked on Amazon's other cloud-computing services, like S3 (storage) and EC2 (computing). They're a natural target. Amazon helps them get up and running with a proof-of-concept website. Never mind that it won't scale cost-effectively. By the time a real CTO gets hired and figures that out, they'll already have raised $40 million from unwitting venture capitalists. In the meantime, the startuppers get to tell users that their data is safely stored with Amazon, a name consumers trust. Win-win-win.

SimpleDB's perfect for anyone who's not aiming to serve millions of users. In other words, most of the Web 2.0 startups today that won't be around two years from now. If your ambitions are low, your technical skills lower, and your sense of shame lower yet, Jeff Bezos has the database for you.

• The New York Times: Google's Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster, Plaxo and Ning
  
• O'Reilly's Radar: Hi5, iLike, Slide, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning and Six Apart
  
• TechCrunch: Orkut, Salesforce.com, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle
  
• Valleywag: Hi5, Orkut, LinkedIn, Friendster, Ning, Salesforce.com, and Oracle

Guess the only way to find out for sure who's involved is to attend CampFire Thursday night on the Google campus. We would, but we have a thing against CamelCase. But bring us back a s'more, wouldja?

(Photo by russelljsmith)

• She's Geeky, an unconference aimed at bringing together women in technology, begins at noon at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. [She's Geeky]
• Oracle opens its doors at noon for its turn as host of Lunch 2.0. [Lunch 2.0]
• The digital media-focused >Play Conference, held on Saturday in Berkeley, will host a preconference tailgate party tonight at the Beale Street Bar in SOMA. [Upcoming]
• Mobile software startup LimeLife hosts an open bar for attendees of this week's CTIA wireless-industry convention. The invite says that guests are invited to bring friends, so drop on by District wine bar on Townsend and Third sometime between 6:30 and 11 to get your drink on, gratis. [Facebook]

Got a to-do that's a must-do? Send it to calendar@valleywag.com. Check out more events on our Google Calendar:

Our company just moved into the old Siebel campus in San Mateo, which has been empty since Oracle relocated the remaining employees. The only thing left of Siebel on the campus is shown in the attached photo.