US Firm Oracle Pulls Plug on Eskom

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BBSA

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Eskom loses a court battle to stop US-based software giant Oracle from withdrawing its crucial services over a dispute relating to billions of rands owed by the power utility.

The Sunday World reported that South Africa is now at the mercy of Oracle to save it from plunging into darkness and keep the lights on.

Eskom failed to convince the Johannesburg High Court to stop Oracle from withdrawing its crucial services.

Oracle provides an online vending system that records 77 million transactions of electricity a month.

The embattled power utility also uses Oracle’s products and services for load monitoring of electricity generation by power stations.

www.techfinancials.co.za

US Firm Oracle Pulls Plug on Eskom | TechFinancials

Eskom loses a court battle to stop US-based software giant Oracle from withdrawing its crucial services over a dispute relating to billions ...
www.techfinancials.co.za www.techfinancials.co.za
 
Only 77 mil a month, dont need Oracle for that. Pay up eskom, just raise the elec price some more. Do your worst we can take it.
 
Hmnmm, I would initially peg this as somewhat sensationalist as a headline, its a licensing dispute which gets ugly and messy but will be resolved at the end of the day. Oracle won't just shut off the services.

I'm also wondering about the legitimacy of the news story to be honest, the sources are not what I would call entirely "legit" on the face of it, and there seems to be no record of this case on any of the court rolls or even a hint of it on any of the more mainstream news outlets and this is something they would jump all over in my opinion. They reference Ted Blom in the Sunday World article and Ted doesn't seem to be all over this on his Twitter like I would expect either.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Hmnmm, I would initially peg this as somewhat sensationalist as a headline, its a licensing dispute which gets ugly and messy but will be resolved at the end of the day. Oracle won't just shut off the services.

I'm also wondering about the legitimacy of the news story to be honest, the sources are not what I would call entirely "legit" on the face of it, and there seems to be no record of this case on any of the court rolls or even a hint of it on any of the more mainstream news outlets and this is something they would jump all over in my opinion. They reference Ted Blom in the Sunday World article and Ted doesn't seem to be all over this on his Twitter like I would expect either.
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Yeah seems to be carried by tabloids and dodgy sources. A dispute probably exists but the risk isn't as made out by Sunday world. The article is also very scarce of useful detail.
 
R13... said:
Yeah seems to be carried by tabloids and dodgy sources. A dispute probably exists but the risk isn't as made out by Sunday world. The article is also very scarce of useful detail.
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Precisely...

Also they reference things like Maximo as if this is an Oracle product when it isn't, its an IBM product. It would probably be running on an Oracle database though, but can be moved off to a different DB Platform if it became a huge sticking point in licensing negotiations (I make no judgement calls on the complexity of migrating the DB to a new platform though.
 
Eskom board chairman Malegapuru Makgoba said he would not comment because he was not aware of the matter.

“I did not see court papers you are talking about and the group chief executive [De Ruyter], who is my link, has not informed me about it, so I’m not bothered about the matter,” Makgoba told Sunday World.
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I find it very strange that the Eskom board chairman was not aware of the court proceedings.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Precisely...

Also they reference things like Maximo as if this is an Oracle product when it isn't, its an IBM product. It would probably be running on an Oracle database though, but can be moved off to a different DB Platform if it became a huge sticking point in licensing negotiations (I make no judgement calls on the complexity of migrating the DB to a new platform though.
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Correct. From what I know from my consulting chums who've done work there the vast majority of their application db's are Oracle 9 based.

Depending on how Maximo (and other applications) interface with the db it may not be possible to simply change it without incurring further development costs.
 
I'm surprised they haven't gone SAP yet, everyone knows they're much easier to bribe..
 
grok said:
I'm surprised they haven't gone SAP yet, everyone knows they're much easier to bribe..
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They use SAP for a few things, but I doubt the nature of their business allows for a complete SAP "takeover".

Their former CIO was also fired in 2015 for irregularities with a SAP contract and then of course there's the whole Trillian/McKinsey/Gupta story as well.
 
Who exactly is Eskom warning? The SA public or Oracle.
 
Well if you want a warning about getting timely payment from government, this is one of them. Get product and services from providers, defer payment, then use stalingrad court tactics to deflect or defer payment responsibility.
 
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