Pity the infected
Those who have already been bitten by the Oracle bug are mostly doomed. Oracle has been fiendishly clever in creating an interdependent ecosystem of (surprisingly poor) application suites, often adding very little value but still of course chargeable, along with and further interpenetrated with essential functionality like finance (also done startlingly badly) to feed off its database (which itself is no longer particularly competitive) and thereby ensure it cannot be binned. Buying Oracle is like swallowing an alien parasite: before you know it you are being bled dry, the tentacles extend into every vital part of your organisation and if you try to surgically remove any part of it, destruction ensues.
Very few organisations, especially those which have been sacking all their best, experienced people in favour of outsourcing to supposedly cheap employees, are remotely capable of freeing themselves from Oracle's clutches. Indeed, the outsourced ones now exist to funnel money to two parasites—Oracle and their outsourcers: though sometimes the parasites allow their hosts to keep just enough money to keep breathing.
So really we have to focus our message on those who haven't yet got the facehugger wrapped round their heads, because only they might be saved. "Run—don't walk, RUN—from that Oracle saleslizard, and we'll send a dropship for evac".
PS: A virtual pint for whoever's first with: "I say we take off, and ..."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
