[kevinsky]

It is the best database if you are a bank, military or very large company who is already using it. Even in large government departments where I do contract work no one, absolutely no one, ever says "Why don't we use an Oracle database for our new application". If you are a large company and pay enough in licensing fees you can get great support and it plays well with other Oracle acquisitions like PeopleSoft. Some of the support tooling is a nightmare to patch (looking at you OEM!).

[Spooky23]

Exactly. The issue tends to be that you need Oracle Financials or PeopleSoft, so you are forced to build in-house expertise, or bring in consultants.

Once you’ve introduced the Oracle, unless you firewall these people, those people end up “infecting” other processes. Oracle pays salespeople more to cross-sell their colleagues, and your Oracle SMEs start seeding Oracle shit wherever they can. You inevitably violate a license agreement, and then end up buying more Oracle shit as a penance. And the cycle continues.

Once infected, it’s difficult to cure. You need the rare combo of strong IT and business leadership and hands on, aggressive legal over a period of years. While battling, the vendor will do whatever they can to undermine that leadership and reward allies.