Quick: If you had to name Oracle's biggest problem what would it be? Lousy hardware sales? Lawsuits? Its reputation as being too arrogant with customers?
Ha!
Oracle President Mark Hurd says its main problem is that most of its revenue comes from a relatively small number of customers. He was speaking today at a conference for industry analysts who cover Oracle, reports the VAR Guy blog.
When someone in the audience asked how customers can have a better relationship with Oracle, Hurd answered that 60% of Oracle's revenue comes from 2,000 customers. The problem is an "awareness issue" meaning customers aren't aware of all the other stuff Oracle sells.
Sounds like he's saying: if customers want Oracle to be a better IT partner, customers need to step up and buy more stuff. We think he has that backwards ... customers will buy more stuff if they love the company as much as they like its products.
HP isn't a warm fuzzy company to work with either. But it does have a better reputation, held over from its early days. Hurd says HP's biggest problem was that it was more into using tech than selling it.
“My biggest concern at HP eight years ago was our IT spend was bigger than our R&D spend. We had 19,000 IT people and 16,000 sales people. Imagine telling David Packard: ‘We had scaled our way to that, aren’t you proud?'" he said.
Are you an Oracle or HP employee with a story to tell? We want to hear it. We are discreet. jbort@bjinnox.com
