back to article Ellison's healthcare obsession carries risks for Oracle

As Oracle disappointed markets with its financial results last week, CTO and founder Larry Ellison made a big sell of a growth plan based around healthcare, a plan not without its drawbacks. Big Red’s stock fell 4 percent after reporting its financial results for Q3, which showed revenue up 18 percent on a year earlier to hit …

  1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

    FUBB

    Whatever you think of Oracle, having to "fight back" to defend an 18% revenue growth which missed expectations by less than 1% shows how fucked up the financial markets are.

    1. seven of five

      Re: FUBB

      12390000000 instead of 12420000000. Probably lost somewhere in Larry's couch.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: FUBB

        Under one of the palm trees.

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: FUBB

        Probably lost somewhere in Larry's couch

        Or lost in the capital budget (AKA 'Larrys Yacht Fund')

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: FUBB

          Who does yachts any more? Islands is where it's at, man!

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: FUBB

            They still need the yachts to get between islands.

          2. hittitezombie

            Re: FUBB

            Islands can sink beneath a rising sea whereas a yatch will be above the water until torpedoed by an upset Government customer's sub.

    2. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: FUBB

      Agreed; it is literally astonishing. It's almost like capital has too much power ...

    3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: FUBB

      Far from me to defend the Big Red One, but really, you're right. It is particularly petty to complain about a $12+ billion in revenue when you were expecting a mere 300 million more.

  2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Cerner will lose them business

    Spoken with a few people who are very keen to move off Cerner since Oracle bought it.

    Long term, commoditisation of some of these markets is going to happen and that will affect margins in a bad way. Regulation might also, at some point, wake up the hidden cost of Hotel California clouds and make getting your data back easier and cheaper.

    1. TVU Silver badge

      Re: Cerner will lose them business

      "Spoken with a few people who are very keen to move off Cerner since Oracle bought it"

      Indeed, because licence compliance audits will be coming their way in 3, 2, 1...

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Cerner will lose them business

        Yes, but there also conflicts of interest. You might, for example, be hosting your SAP infrastructure on Cerner. You might then, again for example, find support for this somehow getting worse…

      2. hittitezombie

        Re: Cerner will lose them business

        "Dear sir, you might be suffering from a heart attack with imminent death risk, unfortunately you have not paid your license fees for 2022, therefore tough luck. Do not worry though, after your eventual death, we will very happily raid your estate and take the amount you owe to us, i.e., all of it".

  3. aerogems Silver badge
    Pirate

    Gone Yachting

    Oracle just needs to find an assistant for Ellison that is well versed in yachting and can distract him any time he starts getting to think like he still runs the business. Sort of like Telsa and SpaceX have armies of handlers to keep Twitler as far away from the actual business as possible and they aren't the shit show inside a raging dumpster fire that is Twitter. If Ellison's handler does his/her/their job well, it'd be like the time Ellison was supposed to give some kind of presentation, but was a no show. After a bunch of frantic searching they found he'd blown off the event to fuck around on his yacht. Only this time, it'd be by design.

    1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

      Re: Gone Yachting

      "Sort of like Telsa and SpaceX have armies of handlers to keep Twitler as far away from the actual business as possible..."

      Wouldn't one well-informed troll Twitter account be sufficient distraction?

      1. aerogems Silver badge

        Re: Gone Yachting

        Ideally they'd keep Twitler as far away from Twitter as possible. When he violates the law or admits to violating the law, on Twitter, regulators have this annoying habit of using that as evidence against him and the companies he heads up. Maybe distract him with listings of horses and hire porn stars or prostitutes to dress up as flight attendants. Every "eccentric" company head would need handlers who know their specific foibles. I'm just spitballing here. Like maybe they could get Ellison interested in landscaping, so when he isn't on his yacht, he could be gardening on his property in Hawaii, or pretending like he was a castaway from Lost.

  4. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

    Downsides of heathcare systems

    .. surely is that unlike office software, there is a degree of liability for failure. Hasn't Cerner actually killed a few people by delaying drug prescriptions due to data ending up in a dead-letter queue?

    https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/two-deaths-possibly-tied-to-flawed-oracle-cerner-va-ehr-rollout-house-members-say.html

    https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/mar/15/senators-threaten-consequences-after-va-confirms-4/

    1. hittitezombie

      Re: Downsides of heathcare systems

      Oracle has driven plenty of people mad, or to desperaton and suicide, therefore I don't see any problem.

  5. Code For Broke

    What Oracle sells healthcare:

    https://www.zero2turbo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Bugatti-Chiron1.jpg

    What Oracle delivers:

    https://ericlahti.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/yugo.jpg

    I should add that, as a techie responsible for the implementation of Oracle products in a healthcare setting, Oracle does provide me countless opportunities to consider these kinds of analogies. Which is a lark. I suppose. Of maybe just the only way I cope.

    Help.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      That's a highly flawed analogy. That Yugo has all 4 wheels on it.

  6. mevets

    If health is their thing, maybe a new frontman?

    I don't want to dip into meth-shaming, but that dude looks a lot like the last dead meth head I saw.

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