NO LOVE AT ORACLE (10/16/22)

OCTOBER 16, 2022 — 201 LAYOFFS IN REDWOOD CITY AND BELMONT CALIFORNIA

The company continues to reduce its headcount, this time with 201 employees laid off from its former headquarters in Redwood City and nearby Belmont. The layoffs include data scientists, developers, and marketing specialists.

MAY 30, 2019 — CONTINUING LAYOFFS BEING DISGUISED BY ORACLE

Over the last few weeks and months, Oracle has laid off hundreds of employees at the Seattle office once viewed as the future of its cloud computing strategy, according to a report.

Business Insider reported last week that the Seattle layoffs affected 300 people and came as part of cuts across Oracle’s cloud teams said to involve as many as several thousand layoffs across the broader company. But the Seattle cuts are notable given the mission that group was assigned: to make Oracle relevant in cloud computing using talent from Cloud City.

An Oracle representative did not respond to a request for comment.

Previous post…

Once again, Oracle is not being transparent about hundreds of layoffs involving teams associated with the Solaris operating system and SPARC storage products. Not unusual given billionaire Larry Ellison’s penchant for secrecy. Speculation is rampant about the continuing development of Linux and a plan to continually upgrade their Solaris 11.3 version rather than issue a new 12.0 version. It is believed that this may be part of a massive push to convince customers to abandon their on-premises hardware and systems and migrate their existing operations into the cloud as either a hybrid or full cloud deployment.

The company has been known to be less than forthcoming and rumors are flourishing …

“In early May 2017, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd denied a rumor that the company was planning massive job cuts in June 2017. At the time, Hurd called the mass layoff rumor “fake news.” Fast forward to present day (June: the start of Oracle’s new fiscal year) and multiple sources suggest the company had some cuts today — though the sources don’t consider the cuts to be “mass” layoffs.”

Then on June 1, 2017, we see, “Oracle apparently made job cuts today, according to sources close to the technology giant. ChannelE2E has not confirmed actual layoff figures, but one source suggests hardware teams, in particular will be stretched thin as the company doubles down on cloud services.”

One day you are gainfully employed in a well-paying job, and the next you receive your walking papers with details of your meager severance. Best practices include keeping your ear tuned to the company rumor mill and the musings of trade and commercial publications.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life, or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere ... No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

NO-RING VOICEMAIL: STEALTH MARKETING TECHNOLOGY

Ringless Voicemail is a technological solution for delivering a marketing or informational message to a user’s cell phone without annoying the user with an annoying alert ring or necessity to answer the call. This is the equivalent of robocalling without the major downside of interrupting the daily activities of the call recipient.

Look for this technology to be integrated into financial alert messages, collections, and other non-marketing scenarios where you wish to “push” an unobtrusive message to the recipient. 

How it works … The vendor’s software initiates a landline-to-landline session directly with the mobile phone carrier's voicemail system and inserts a message directly into a mobile user’s mailbox storage – without any initial ring or alert tone. The consumer will see a non-audible signal that a voicemail exists. There is no additional cost to the cell phone user for receiving, storing, or processing the message. 

Is it legal? … Some consumer advocacy groups, like the National Consumer Law Center, are claiming that the ringless voicemail process falls under the Federal Trade Commission’s Do-Not-Call rules and is, or should be, a regulated business practice that should respect the “opt-out” wishes of cell phone users. Others see no harm as the practice is not intrusive and is without cost to the message recipient.

Is it effective? … Apparently, there are few users that are willing to share their success stories lest their competitors adopt the same practices and nullify its effectiveness by direct competition or unwelcome saturation of the sensibilities of the cell phone users. Most of the success stories are provided by service vendors who point to repeat service orders as proof of effectiveness. 

Political ramifications … Look for the subject of ringless voicemail to be highly politicized. Already the GOP and the United States Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the practice as being beneficial to business and by extension our economy. Besides, political interests see this as another method of providing information to voters, and it is likely that politicians will exempt themselves from any laws or administrative rules and regulations. 

Employment ramifications … One might expect that some low-skill jobs in the outward-bound telemarketing and market research industry might be lost to an automated solution. The idea that you can instantly place an order or seek further information with a single push of a button to redial a call center is also a desirable feature. 

Consider how this newer technology might be used to cut costs and jobs in your industry, company, division, and department. Plan for the future. 

---

ADOBE FLASH - DISRUPTING THE STATUS QUO

It appears that Adobe Systems has announced the end of life for its iconic Flash product by the end of 2020, giving web developers who relied on this ground-breaking technology to deliver content across multiple platforms with a degree of fidelity and clarity that was not widely available from other sources at the time. While the Flash product has posed security risks and interoperability issues, it was Apple’s apparent decision not to allow Flash to be incorporated into its ubiquitous platforms that was apparently the deciding factor in killing the product. Look forward to seeing new products that include the open web standards such as HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly.

Considering the number of times that I had to uninstall, reinstall, and update my systems with the latest versions of Flash, I cannot say that I would not welcome a newer, more stable product capable of displaying my content with the fidelity I believe provides for an excellent user experience. There are few products like Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) – now a freely available open standard – to display documents on so many platforms and devices.  Flash has served its purpose and now its time has come to be replaced with better technological solutions.

However, one must consider the impact on the hundreds of thousands of websites and millions of browsers that currently use Flash. Not to mention the video games, educational programs, and advertising which rely on the Flash product. Like all disruptive technologies, this one has a golden lining – producing additional business for those who will be able to redesign, re-engineer, and re-code existing sites to the newer standards.

For those who want to follow the Flash story, the original Adobe announcement can be found at Flash & The Future of Interactive Content | Adobe. Steve Jobs’ 2010 Flash-killer comments can be found at Thoughts on Flash – Apple.  And a personal recollection from Stacy Jones at Fortune can be found at Adobe Flash Player: What Coders Can Learn From This | Fortune.com.

Disruptive technologies can appear out of the blue, but there are always signs of the coming impact if one is attuned to the trade press and company announcements. While the majority of breathless announcements of breakthroughs and paradigm-shifting technologies are mere puffery, serious comments from people like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Oracle’s Larry Ellison should be taken more seriously.

I would like to close this post with one of my favorite Steve Jobs jokes, which is truer than not. How many Apple programmers are needed to change a light bulb? What’s a light bulb, you mean the iLight?  Even more close to the truth is the Bill Gates version for Microsoft programmers: none, Bill Gates has declared “dark” to be the new standard.

---