From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 8/9/2025 5:39 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   > In article <1075dda$qq7j$2@dont-email.me>,   
   > Arne Vajhøj   wrote:   
   >> On 8/8/2025 1:42 PM, bill wrote:   
   >>> On 8/8/2025 11:05 AM, Chris Townley wrote:   
   >>>> You would think that Oracle would have details of customers who have   
   >>>> bought RDB licenses in the past   
   >>>   
   >>> But then, you also might think that Oracle would just much like   
   >>> to see them all go away so they could stop spending resources on   
   >>> something that is not a profit maker.   
   >>   
   >> I am rather confident that Rdb is making a profit. The list   
   >> price of Rdb is pretty high and even with a solid discount   
   >> to good customers, then Oracle should be able to make   
   >> a profit.   
   >   
   > Define "profit".  If Oracle feels that the engineering resources   
   > being devoted to Rdb would make more money if devoted to   
   > something else, then they may take that delta into account when   
   > calculating profits.  So even if they felt like the total   
   > engineering cost were strictly less than total generated   
   > revenue, they may view it as a loss due to missed revenue   
   > opportunity.   
      
   Opportunity cost is not profit for alternative development, but   
   extra profit from having them do the alternative development   
   compared to other developers.   
      
   Which I expect to be approx. zero. I would expect the Rdb team   
   to be 10X developers on Rdb, but not on any of the other   
   Oracle database products.   
      
   Rdb is very different. Different database architecture,   
   different programming language, different platform,   
   some very old stuff (RDO etc.).   
      
   >> Oracle DB, Oracle ERP & CRM (whatever its current name is),   
   >> Oracle cloud etc. are huge business areas making tens   
   >> of billions in revenue and billions in profit.   
   >>   
   >> So if Rdb talk about growing revenue by 10 M$ and Oracle cloud talk   
   >> about growing revenue by 10 B$, then senior management will not   
   >> spend many seconds on Rdb.   
   >   
   > USD $10M is not a lot of money when amortized over the amount of   
   > time required to bring Rdb for x86_64 to market.  How many   
   > people are working on this thing?  How many will be required for   
   > maintenance?  How long do they project those revenue numbers to   
   > hold?   
      
   Customers pay annual software update license on Alpha and Itanium   
   today.   
      
   And if they get the x86-64 port out the door, then customers   
   will pay pay annual software update license on x86-64.   
      
   So annual revenue and annual cost. Hopefully with a profit.   
   But point being that the profit is relative small in the   
   bigger Oracle picture.   
      
   If they don't get the x86-64 port out the door then   
   both annual revenue and annual cost will eventually   
   move to zero.   
      
   Arne   
      
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