Oracle Signs 10-Year Software Contract With Pentagon Worth Up To $7 Billion (cnbc.com) 83
Oracle has signed a 10-year Pentagon contract worth up to $7 billion to provide on-premises software, licenses, maintenance, and consulting for branches of the military. CNBC reports: The contract covers the use of Oracle software in on-premises data centers for branches of the military, the U.S. intelligence community and the Coast Guard, according to a statement. The Central Intelligence Agency was Oracle's first customer. A five-year base period for the contract includes perpetual and subscription-based software licenses, maintenance and consulting, according to one description.
Kirsten Davies, the Department of Defense's chief information officer, said in the release that the agency is saving at least $441 million for taxpayers "by fundamentally improving how we procure on-premises Oracle capabilities."
Kirsten Davies, the Department of Defense's chief information officer, said in the release that the agency is saving at least $441 million for taxpayers "by fundamentally improving how we procure on-premises Oracle capabilities."
No way! (Score:2, Funny)
Seriously, you're shitting me. This same Larry Ellison? https://people.com/thmb/UgtSvE... [people.com]
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Larry was a Clinton guy in the 1990s. He became a Trump guy since 2016
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Larry doesn't care who is sitting on his face. It isn't as though he has any principles.
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No, he does have principles: he'll do anything for love. Love for money, of course.
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Larry was a Clinton guy in the 1990s. He became a Trump guy since 2016
Trump was a Clinton guy prior to his 2016 run. They were all running in the same circles.
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From Wikipedia:
> Trump registered as a Republican in Queens in 1969 and in Manhattan in 1987;[13][105] a member of the Independence Party, the New York state affiliate of the Reform Party, in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; a Republican in 2009; unaffiliated in 2011; and a Republican in 2012.[106]
So during Clinton's presidency he was an opponent of him. Indeed, he made an attempt to be Bush Sr's running mate in 1992. He was only a Democrat for about 8 years, in part because he had been rejected by the pre-Pal
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So was Trump. He was a democrat back then.
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No, he was a Democrat from 2001-2009. He was a failed Republican until the mid-1990s, and a failed Reform Party member until 2001. (That is, both times he tried to run for office, VP under Bush Sr, and President under the Reform Party, and was rejected in both cases.)
It IS true that he moved in the same circles, and was friendly with the Clintons after Clinton was out of office, but he clearly never voted for any Democrat for office with the possible exception (unknown) of John Kerry.
Re:No way! (Score:4, Insightful)
The orange guy was never Republican or Democrat. He is a sociopathic opportunist. He will claim to be whatever is most likely to let him get on with his grifting.
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Ok, but that's sort of a No True Scotsman of politicians in general.
The government's big enough to build its own (Score:4, Interesting)
But something something socialism so here we are... All of us stuck with shit software that constantly spies on us
Re: The government's big enough to build its own (Score:1)
Exactly. The government does develop technology, like Siri at IARPA and it hands it out to billionaires in private sector (Apple)
Re: The government's big enough to build its own (Score:4, Insightful)
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Always the time-honored classic. Of course, it hastens the demise of society, but who cares about minor details like that ...
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Well spotted! It would be interesting to know how much stupid money is left to prop up this fake "revolution".
Re:The government's big enough to build its own (Score:5, Informative)
"Governments are generally not made up of people with real capabilities." said by someone who has never worked at a government agency. Most government workers are capable and conscientious and care very much about doing their job right. It is the political hacks that screw things up.
Plus, many government workers must deal with you, the little guy who doesn't know squat about what he's asking them to do and whines incessantly about it not being done. You'd think most people argue: if A, therefore B. Nope, most people argue: if I like B, then A. Try dealing with these boobs day in and day out and still care about your job. Government workers are saints.
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"Governments are generally not made up of people with real capabilities." said by someone who has never worked at a government agency.
And how would you know? The propaganda matches your statement, yes, but the reality does not. With some exceptions, government workers are those that could not make it anywhere else.
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Are you going to include congress and the executive branch in your statement?
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Are you after moving some goalpost or such crap?
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> And how would you know? The propaganda matches your statement, yes, but the reality does not. With some exceptions, government workers are those that could not make it anywhere else.
The irony of claiming the GP is spouting propaganda while you repost a tired, worn out, and completely absurd propaganda slogan is palpable.
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Governments are generally not made up of people with real capabilities.
Because they won't pay enough. They would rather pay twice as much to have a consultant do the same work. There's no way to make that make sense except for corruption.
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I think the pay is not even the problem. The problem is the complete lack of flexibility, the strong tendency to a planned economy (that has never worked), and utter stupidity like "saving" money on services or projects that deliver much more than they cost and the political sabotage of all effectiveness on top of that.
Caveat: Technically, I am a government worker at this time as almost all universities here are government funded. I can see the structures and the limitations. I get part of the official inte
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Related because of explosive diarrheas being back in the news by popular demand---
The CDC had a successful program for bringing in experts from academia and industry for a limited term, whom they could not afford otherwise or who didn't want to switch to government jobs permanently. This brought together people motivated to contribute to public health and their expertise and collaboration that would not otherwise be available to the government.
But money for the infectious disease group that benefited from t
Re:The government's big enough to build its own (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
The only reason you think that is because of $YOUR_AGE years of right wing American brainwashing and the people at the top deliberately breaking government to try to prevent, for example, nationalizing healthcare becoming popular.
The reality is that the government is full of smart, conscientious, people, and had more before DOGE started firing swathes of them. People used to be able to rely upon advice from the FDA and CDC, to name but two agencies that do great work when left alone by politicians.
If government doesn't work for you, blame the people you vote for.
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You think that because the GOP screams "Gubbermint BAD" at the top of their lungs, while doing everything they can to make it that way.
You want good government? Stop electing assholes who insist upon tearing it down.
They used to...it didn't go great. (Score:2, Troll)
They could just hire people to do it and then the fruits of that labor could be available to everyone as open source. As an added bonus we wouldn't be constantly paying for the profitability of private companies for no particularly good reason. And we wouldn't be creating billionaires that are going to undermine our democracy. But something something socialism so here we are... All of us stuck with shit software that constantly spies on us
First of all, didn't Oracle get it's start as a CIA product? The company is a shit show today, but you can't dispute that they were a leader in the 80s and even the 90s. Ask anyone who has served or even just worked in gov. They've dealt with poorly-maintained software written for a specific purpose.
The gov COULD write software in theory, but historically, they do more poorly than when they hire consultants to do so. The ideal is private industry with heavy accountability. Those private businesses
Re:They used to...it didn't go great. (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the previous administration, the Department of DEFENSE whacked Oracle and brought in SAP for help in getting procedures and software that could stand up to audits. Ya, SAP too can be a clusterfuck but it is a damn sight better than any of the crap Oracle produced. This is Larry getting his nose back in under the tent because el Bunko in the main office is getting kickbacks.
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Although it is hard to imaging how anything could be significantly worse than SAP, Oracle manages that.
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> They could just hire people to do it and then the fruits of that labor could be available to
Intentional snip at the end because I want to give an example where it's not open source. For example, in the 1970s the CIA did something similar to what you describe and commissioned a database from some consultants. The product was for a database, which the CIA code-named "Oracle".
Can you guess who was one of those consultants and what they're doing today with the code?
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Have you *seen* government-written software? It's dated, clunky, and bureaucratic.
Sure, they *could* build their own, but *should* they? I don't know about that.
Where are the savings coming from? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kirsten Davies, the Department of Defense's chief information officer, said in the release that the agency is saving at least $441 million for taxpayers "by fundamentally improving how we procure on-premises Oracle capabilities."
So, it's $441M saved, by improvements in procurement. Not sure what that means. Does that mean Oracle gave them a $441M discount, or they found a way to reduce $441M in wasted money on the procurement process? Or something else?
In any case, this sounds like puffery.
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Without a site license, one would expect each Service and each Program to negotiate a separate contract with Oracle (or any other software vendor.) Enterprise site licensing is pretty common, both in government circles and in industry, with savings over a collection of individual purchases. So there's nothing unusual about this.
Re:Where are the savings coming from? (Score:4, Insightful)
If that's true, then what is unusual is that it wasn't done a long time ago.
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DoD has been doing site licensing for Oracle for at least 25 years. On my project, we found a site license that covered our selection & use of Oracle back around 2001/2002. So NO NEWS HERE.
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So, Oracle site licenses for DoD have existed for 25 years. Then we still don't have an answer to my question: Where are the savings coming from?
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The savings come from the rate Oracle (or any other vendor) charges for a single Enterprise license, compared to the rate Oracle would charge each customer/project separately, summed over the set of projects. Is that clear enough?
(Frankly, that's a surprisingly low number for the savings.)
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So, are you saying that 25 years ago, various branches and departments of the DoD had numerous site licenses, and the current administration switched to a single enterprise license?
Then my comment above stands: "If that's true, then what is unusual is that it wasn't done a long time ago."
And maybe they did as you say, but there's no indication in TFA or TFS as to exactly what the administration (and Oracle?) did to lower the cost of the licenses, or their procurement. So, still asking: "Where are the saving
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However that works, it's a $7bn deal *now*, but by the time it's half delivered it'll be a $50bn deal, and will only need another $100bn to actually finish it. It's the Oracle Way. I'm just glad that'll assign a lot of Oracle time/money/energy away from the other fuck ups they have going on around the world.
Why anyone does business with Oracle escapes me. In this case though, it's probably because of certain 'facilitation payments' to certain people.
What software? (Score:2)
I'm not interested in what savings, I'm interesting in what software? What software does Oracle have that is worth actually giving them ANY amount of money for today?
Long term contracts (Score:4, Insightful)
Expect a lot of long term contracts to be signed between the US Government and those who contributed $$ to Trump. Lock it in while he is still in office.
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Congress needs to approve multi-year contracts. I think this might qualify.
Remember, Congress (not POTUS) controls the purse. At least, it's supposed to work that way.
Re:Long term contracts (Score:4, Informative)
Congress needs to approve multi-year contracts. I think this might qualify.
Well, it turns out it doesn't. The DoD can negotiate contracts like this, as long as the funding is available from previously-appropriated budgets.
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Those companies will flip on a dime. In the past, they'd own the GOP, but knew how to bribe the relevant people on the Dem side. However, since the last 10 years, when MAGA turned on them, making it clear that the GOP can no longer be taken for granted, their new strategy is tactical - compete for the patronage of whoever's in power
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Remember, Congress (not POTUS) controls the purse. At least, it's supposed to work that way.
Yeah, but in practice it does not. The Executive does whatever they decide to do, and no one can stop them. The courts say that they lack the authority -it is Congress job to do. Congressional leaders lack the will to stand up to the executive, and even if they tried the members of Congress would have to agree on any action -and they cannot agree with one another.
An uncaring Court, a divided Congress, and unitary Executive power.
High quality (Score:5, Funny)
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Best BJ's ever, believe me!
Larry Ellison applied for unemployment benefits (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not just a bail-out, it's Donnieâ(TM)s quid-pro-quo of course. Nothing like day-light corruption to cap things off.
How much consultant wii that get the Pentagon? (Score:3)
Larry Ellison can at least afford another island in Hawai with this deal.
Re:How much consultant wii that get the Pentagon? (Score:4, Funny)
another island in Hawaii
Or Saint Helena. It's been a while since they had such a distinguished "guest".
Great news! (Score:3, Insightful)
Great for America's enemies, that is. If even a quarter of what I've heard about Oracle's offerings being over-budget, never-on-time, never-on-spec shitshows is actually true, then this will weaken the country's defense capabilities.
Then again, it's no longer the DoD, it's now the DoW - so maybe defense is no longer important? /sarc
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The real contracts will still happen. This one is just a reward/handout from The Don.
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just a reward/handout from The Don.
...Corleone.
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In general this is NOT for Oracle services...this is site wide (for all of DOW) for enterprise database and other software licensing....
There are contractors for each branch and project that use and maintain databases and most of them are Oracle....lots of legacy systems and always something new on the horizon....but Oracle generally is NOT doing any work.
Terrible Person Sells Terrible Software (Score:2)
to Terrible Administration
News at Eleven!
Oracle is like Postgres (Score:2)
...with a couple more features you probably don't need, missing some cool stuff you'd rather have.
And hideously expensive and complicated to administer, instead of free.
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Nobody sane use Oracle as a database in new projects anyways. But the Oracle database is not the only crappy product Oracle sells.
How much did it cost to bribe Trump? (Score:2)
No matter what Ellison comes out personally richer while the rest of us pay the bill.
Re:How much did it cost to bribe Trump? (Score:5, Informative)
$45 million. https://fortune.com/2026/06/25... [fortune.com]
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The Grift Continues (Score:1)
$7 billion you say? (Score:2)
https://www.jpost.com/business... [jpost.com]
Fascinating
Where is (Score:4, Funny)
Where is DOGE that one time you need 'em?
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They do not do real optimization. Also, DOGE has stolen all the data they wanted already.
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Larry Ellison is a friend of Elon. Of course DOGE wouldn't touch Ellison.
Good (Score:2)
Not $7B Award; IDIQ (Score:5, Informative)
I'll also add that they only set the ceiling at $3.3B. The government in theory has the option to increase the ceiling up to $7B, but again, that's at their discretion not Oracle's.
Whore'acle does it again (Score:2)
up to (Score:2)
Up to $7 bn, the same way I get up to 100 Mbps. It's always one-tenth of the advertised figure.