Re: Birmingham City Council chose Oracle, went broke because of it ;)

On Thu, 7 Sept 2023 at 09:23, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 1:49 AM Justin Clift <justin(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> >
> > Heh Heh Heh. This is pretty funny:
> >
> >
> https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/05/birmingham_city_council_oracle/
> >
> > "Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe, has
> > declared itself in financial distress after troubled Oracle project
> > costs ballooned from £20 million to around £100 million ($125.5
> > million)."
> >
> > Wonder if they'll make the smart choice next time around, and choose PG
> > + a decent vendor instead? :)
>
> In fairness, that project is about Oracle Fusion, not the database. So
> PG doesn't have a competing product. There are opensource ERP products
> out there, but I'm not sure they're advanced enough to handle
> something like that...
>

Indeed. It also only amounts for a fraction of the council's liabilities.
The vast majority is from an equal pay judgement against them, which iirc,
totals a couple of billion pounds (of which they've paid off over half in
the last decade I believe).

So, yeah, the Oracle thing is a massive screw up. But it's not what caused
the majority of their problems.

--
Dave Page
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