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

On Thu, 7 Sept 2023 at 09:23, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote:

On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 1:49 AM Justin Clift <justin@postgresql.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

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