From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 8/13/2025 8:09 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   > In article <107gjob$3ir9s$1@dont-email.me>,   
   > Arne Vajhøj   wrote:   
   >> On 8/9/2025 5:39 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   >>> In article <1075dda$qq7j$2@dont-email.me>,   
   >>>> 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.).   
   >   
   > Your statement is predicated on the assumption that Oracle cares   
   > about the engineers rather than the engineering resources (which   
   > are simply a cost function).   
   >   
   > Evidence of their actions, as a company, do not support that   
   > assumption.   
      
   Given that Oracle is a software company with a market cap over 600 B$,   
   then I would think they know something about software engineering.   
      
   But even if they don't and consider all software engineers equal   
   then it does not really change anything.   
      
   They will assume opportunity cost to be zero and be right -   
   just coming to the right conclusion for the wrong reason.   
      
   >>>> 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.   
   >   
   > I wouldn't have asked how long they expect those revenue numbers   
   > to hold if I hadn't understood that, so sorry, but this really   
   > doesn't change the point at all: USD $10M/an is a tiny amount of   
   > money relative to costs, and again, how long do they expect   
   > those revenue numbers to hold?   
      
   Forever.   
      
   Which in the IT world is something like 20+ years.   
      
   It would not make sense for Oracle to port if they expect   
   customers to migrate away in a few years.   
      
   And it would not make sense for customers to move to x86-64   
   and migrate away in a few years.   
      
   Arne   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)