Actually, what I meant by saying that I was tricked was this: Last fall, we started to implement a data warehouse. I checked licensing for 9iDs and was told that we have 9. This seemed to me to be no problem. Apparently, when you call to inquire about such things, your sales rep is notified. He contacted me within a week to say that, although we have 9 9iDs licenses, they were migrated licenses from previous products that are
now bundled there. Oracle Warehouse Builder was not included, but we could buy those licenses for $5000 each. We bought 3. He then proceeded to tell me about these wonderful features of Oracle 8i and 9i that would help with the data warehouse. The one that he pushed the most was Partitioning, even sending me white papers and inviting me to web-casts about it. I didn't need either, this is not a tough concept. He NEVER
mentioned that it was an additional cost item.
He called me yesterday, 2 weeks after the data warehouse was supposed to go live, to find out how everything went. Or so he said. He jumped right into whether we had used partitioning like he suggested. When I told him yes, he came back with "You know that's not a free option, and you're license doesn't cover it." He had already looked up our licensing prior to the call and was obviously certain that he'd "catch" us using the
option without paying for it. I told him that the option is available on install, and you don't even have to pick it specifically. His answer was that that didn't mean we could just use it.
That's what I meant when I said I felt I was tricked.
"MacGregor, Ian A." wrote:
> Well stated. However, unlike you I cannot read minds, and cannot say whether the default install model has such a sinister purpose. Some versions of Oracle's installer have been so buggy that I can only conclude their purpose was to convince you to use another database. If what you state as the only defensible reason is true, wouldn't Oracle be marshalling a vast army of auditors to collect from the unwitting companies.
>
> The person did not complain that he was fooled into installing the product, but tricked into admitting he had installed it.
>
> Ian MacGregor
> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
> ian_at_SLAC.STanford.edu
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 1:34 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
> "For some reason there has been a great confusion..."
>
> I believe that's exactly the point. Oracle installed this extra-cost
> option by default, for no other defensible reason then to encourage its
> unwitting use. There's a reason there has been confusion. They're like
> a drug pusher, first one's easy but once you're hooked you PAY. And
> unless you know where to look its not so easy to find info on Metalink
> for what are the options for each DB version. I don't know what the
> original meaning was behind 'feeling tricked', but I guarantee you there
> are some on this list who've just realized they've been tricked into
> using an expensive add-on product they may not be able to back out of at
> this point.
>
> Jim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 3:29 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
> While I agree Oracle is avaricious and sales reps are a smarmy lot, I
> don't see any entrapment here. If you believe you are licensed for an
> option and you are not, it is perfectly legitimate for Oracle to ask for
> you to pay for that license and any maintenance costs. $23,800 is
> cheap, must be a 20 named user license. They are not asking for
> payment for all the years it had been illegally installed? Consider
> yourself very lucky and Oracle anything but greedy.
>
> "Feeling tricked" implies that had you known that you were not licensed,
> you would not have divulged it to Oracle. If so, you are lower than a
> smoldering heap of parrot droppings. However, as it was indeed an
> innocent mistake and no such characterization is necessary.
>
> For some reason there has been a great confusion over whether the
> partitioning option costs extra. Even some of the most knowledgeable
> DBA's in the world were mistaken on this. The height of this
> misunderstanding was a two to three years ago. I expect there were
> hundreds perhaps thousands of sites who have installed partitioning
> without a license because they believed it to be free.
>
> Ian MacGregor
> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
> ian_at_slac.stanford.edu
>
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Scott Canaan (srcdco_at_rit.edu)
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"Life is like a sewer, what you get out of it depends on what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
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Received on Thu Mar 14 2002 - 07:28:22 CST
