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

An important lesson here is to always sit down with a client and understand
their needs before selling an ERP.......

On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 3:51 PM Benjamin Scherrey <scherrey(at)proteus-tech(dot)com>
wrote:

> Well a) the costs of the system (still undelivered) is 4x the initial
> contract ; and b) they've determined that the ERP was incapable of
> performing the functions of the contract because it orientation for
> manufacturing rather than HR. So not even Oracle has a competing product!
>
> On Thu, Sep 7, 2023, 4:28 PM Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> 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
>> pgAdmin: https://www.pgadmin.org
>> PostgreSQL: https://www.postgresql.org
>> EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com
>>
>> PGDay UK 2023, September 12, London: https://2023.pgday.uk
>>
>>
>>

--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor
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