500 + comments on oracle layoff blog

You will find interesting informations on Oracle Layoffs blog, reaching 300 comments world wide.

A few ones below, to give you the opportunity for further reading.

#30 I was let go today, 9 years with the company and countless awards for utilizations and leadership roles in major high profile projects.

#42 Very cheap on severance package: One month for the first year you serve at Oracle and one week for each additional year you serve. 30 days Oracle covered COBRA. Brutal.

#47 Hey #42. Thats a better severance than in the past it used to be 2 weeks for the first year and 1 week for each subsequent year. Larry musta been feeling generous.

#65 I was a bea acquisition employee and we get the bea acquisition package which is 3 months severance, 3 months cobra. The regular package for non-bea oracle employees is 2 weeks for each year of employment, 30 days cobra. (which really sucks for a large company. I am glad I got the bea package) Each large acquisition (peoplesoft, etc) may have a separate type of package that was part of the acquisition agreement.

#74 Re #70, no email just a call from your manager and a Fedex package by noon in the US.

#90 I am on vacation and was on vacation when US layoffs happened. I haven’t got any email from my manager abt layoff. I am wondering abt the process they follow to lay off an employee who is on vacation.

#231 Listen, if you are on a PIP you are history. Been there, done that, put on a PIP ahead of a merger for no reason at all, adhered to the PIP, and was still terminated.

A PIP these days is akin to a shot across the bow of your battleship. They are trying to give you time to get yourself lost from their sandbox. I would take advantage of it.
Never seen a single person who lived to tell about how ‘I was once on a PIP here’.
Sad dealings and not my preferred way to handle things but…..

#255 Rumor (Oracle, India): “One of the world’s largest software products company Oracle is known to have begun linking the payment of its 20,000-odd employees in India with the productive hours they spend in the company. This has given way to salary cuts, ranging between 10 and 50 per cent.”

#379 Oracle has purchased far too many software companies and is quickly gaining the reputation as a software burial ground. They have redundant product lines and are rapidly losing focus on the message they are trying to deliver to customers. Customers of software products Oracle has bought are growing more and more hostile toward Oracle and will close then out from any future business.

#380 Question is what really works.
IF acquisitions and consolidation works for both Corps and customer then its good.
Else it is not a sustainable model.

#507 As a former employee that was acquired by the big O, I have nothing but dismay for this company. Once we were acquired our existing customer base treated us much more hostile, despised the acquisition and put a roadblocks for doing further business. They all indicated doing business with Oracle was painful, slow, ineffective, and viewed Oracle as opportunists that capitalized on the software maintenance revenue streams, jack up the consulting rates, and blow the synergy/integration/red stack non sense at the base. When you swallow up as many companies as Oracle has you will get a case of bad indigestion evidenced by lack of focus and genuinely pissed off customer base.

Reduction in Force wave is coming

Rumors, Rumors, we don't see yet major moves actionned in Europe.
August UK Consulting RIF, and EMEA BEA redundancy RIF were the last ones announced.
However, Economy slowdown is hitting certain areas and we just expect announcement to be made, probably in the consulting/Apps area.
Oracle European Work's Council and Country local work's Council will have to be officially consulted before any redundancy plan deployment.

Still "officially" unconfirmed yet, you will see many goodbyes in the US, dated Jan 9th in the Layoff Blog

Are we talking about 8% of the sales force, 20% of its consulting staff, or just a few hundreds world wide ?

Severance package reported through comments seems very cheap for a company like Oracle : One month for the first year you serve and one week for each additional year you serve. 30 days Oracle covered COBRA (Medical Care).
Given all the extra efforts done worldwide and the company margin, we call for better level of global benefits towards the ex-employees.

Vision 2010 or 1929 ?
Read More :
Oracle Major Layoff - Computer World
Facts and Rumors - The Economist
Spectator October, Spectator November, Layoff Blog, Digital Daily,
India (40 layoffs over 25000)