OAUG Responds to Oracle Proposal

Question

An Open Letter to Mark Jarvis and Ron Wohl
Mark, Ron
Thank you for setting out your proposal to the OAUG on AppsNet. It was useful to see it in writing, although, as you mentioned, it is largely similar to what was proposed and presented to our membership a year ago. As we had a teleconference a few hours before publication it would have been useful to have been given some advance notice of your plan to publish.
However as this has occurred I would like to clear up some errors and omissions in the document.
1. You state that the OAUG would select 100% of the user papers. You omit to mention that would represent 25% of the total conference content, and that 75% would therefore not be user papers (as explained to us in the conference call at 9am PST yesterday, Wednesday 23 May).
2. You state that no proposals were ever put forward by the OAUG board. In the 23 May conference call, just hours before your AppsNet posting, we had proposed that if you were able to support a Fall North American OAUG conference, we would be willing to collaborate with you in line with your proposals for the Spring in North America as well as in Europe and Asia Pacific.
3. You state that you would be required to take 200 developers out of development for a week of OAUG, and before you know it we would have 400 Oracle employees engaged in each conference. Perhaps you had forgotten that a few hours earlier we had indicated that the level of support that we were requesting for the Fall conference was development staff to cover 55 sessions. Given that the next two Fall OAUG events are on the West Coast, even with travel and preparation time this represents about 120 people days, rather than the 2800 employee weeks that you refer to.
4. Twice you state that there are going to be seven conferences in the next twelve months, and refer to four OAUG conferences. When you asked on the conference call if we would participate with you in Europe, we said yes, we would. When you asked where our venue was for Europe next year, we told you that in light of the current situation we had released it. When we discussed Asia Pacific we told you that we intended to hold our conference in Sydney, but that we did not believe that it would affect your conference in Singapore which is several months and several thousand miles away. We agreed that we would be willing to discuss the model in Asia Pacific with you, as you had indicated the possibility of an alternative style event. We were not clear how that would work. In addition, given our willingness to discuss the North American model, you were well aware that seven conferences in the next twelve months was most unlikely.
5. You stated that for the past five years a majority of Oracle employees attending and staffing OAUG conferences were required to pay full attendance. I dont propose to count, but for the record, approximately sixty were free, any Oracle presenters above the sixty were free, and the conference workers paid a reduced rate to cover the costs involved, such as food. Any others who decided to attend did indeed have to pay.
It is hard for us to understand why it has been so difficult to bring this issue to closure. The OAUG Board understands that once Oracle had committed to its AppsWorld events for Spring 2001 that you were too busy to meet with us to discuss a longer term resolution, for example when we proposed a meeting with you in January. It was unfortunate that you were unable to meet the target date of meeting in March after your conference. We were pleased that we finally met on 30 April, and that we appeared to be making some progress in identifying issues and seeking to resolve them. It was disappointing that you had to postpone the agreed follow up meeting from the first week in May to 23 May, and that only then were you able to inform us that you had a deadline for just a week later.
We had sought to avoid going into details on the discussions in public, as we felt that might jeopardise progress. I am not clear what your purpose was in doing so. We continue to be disappointed by Oracles inability to compromise, and that after all of this time, this proposal so closely resembles the original proposal made last year. I would like to make quite clear what the OAUG has offered, and the flexibility that we have shown in being willing to move from the existing, successful model, to try to accommodate your valid needs to reach a wider audience.
The OAUG has proposed that :
7 The OAUG would be willing to collaborate with Oracle on their AppsWorld events in North America, if in return Oracle would participate in the OAUGs independent Fall North American conference to the extent of approximately sixty development staff.
7 The OAUG, in line with the majority of feedback received from European users, would be willing to collaborate with Oracle on their AppsWorld event in Europe.
7 The OAUG, after the Sydney Asia Pacific event which we have committed to in 2001, would be willing to collaborate with Oracle in their AppsWorld event in Asia Pacific, subject to clarification as to the form of that event.
I believe that is a more than reasonable proposal.
Given that Oracle decided to move these discussions into the public arena, that they did so in such an extensive way just a few hours after a discussion with the OAUG, and without giving any advance warning, I am forced to wonder whether Oracle are really negotiating in good faith in this matter
The OAUG has always stood for the independent voice of the user community. We have received consistent and clear feedback from our members that they wish have a forum for education and feedback which is, and can clearly be seen to be, independent from the Oracle message. We recognise Oracles marketing needs, and believe that our proposed compromise meets those needs, and the stated needs of existing users. If Oracle really had the interests of the users at heart it would not behave in this way. However such behaviour by Oracle only goes to reinforce the importance and value of a truly independent users group.
Jeremy Young
OAUG President
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Answer 1

An Open Letter to Mark Jarvis and Ron Wohl
Mark, Ron
Thank you for setting out your proposal to the OAUG on AppsNet. It was useful to see it in writing, although, as you mentioned, it is largely similar to what was proposed and presented to our membership a year ago. As we had a teleconference a few hours before publication it would have been useful to have been given some advance notice of your plan to publish.
However as this has occurred I would like to clear up some errors and omissions in the document.
1. You state that the OAUG would select 100% of the user papers. You omit to mention that would represent 25% of the total conference content, and that 75% would therefore not be user papers (as explained to us in the conference call at 9am PST yesterday, Wednesday 23 May).
2. You state that no proposals were ever put forward by the OAUG board. In the 23 May conference call, just hours before your AppsNet posting, we had proposed that if you were able to support a Fall North American OAUG conference, we would be willing to collaborate with you in line with your proposals for the Spring in North America as well as in Europe and Asia Pacific.
3. You state that you would be required to take 200 developers out of development for a week of OAUG, and before you know it we would have 400 Oracle employees engaged in each conference. Perhaps you had forgotten that a few hours earlier we had indicated that the level of support that we were requesting for the Fall conference was development staff to cover 55 sessions. Given that the next two Fall OAUG events are on the West Coast, even with travel and preparation time this represents about 120 people days, rather than the 2800 employee weeks that you refer to.
4. Twice you state that there are going to be seven conferences in the next twelve months, and refer to four OAUG conferences. When you asked on the conference call if we would participate with you in Europe, we said yes, we would. When you asked where our venue was for Europe next year, we told you that in light of the current situation we had released it. When we discussed Asia Pacific we told you that we intended to hold our conference in Sydney, but that we did not believe that it would affect your conference in Singapore which is several months and several thousand miles away. We agreed that we would be willing to discuss the model in Asia Pacific with you, as you had indicated the possibility of an alternative style event. We were not clear how that would work. In addition, given our willingness to discuss the North American model, you were well aware that seven conferences in the next twelve months was most unlikely.
5. You stated that for the past five years a majority of Oracle employees attending and staffing OAUG conferences were required to pay full attendance. I dont propose to count, but for the record, approximately sixty were free, any Oracle presenters above the sixty were free, and the conference workers paid a reduced rate to cover the costs involved, such as food. Any others who decided to attend did indeed have to pay.
It is hard for us to understand why it has been so difficult to bring this issue to closure. The OAUG Board understands that once Oracle had committed to its AppsWorld events for Spring 2001 that you were too busy to meet with us to discuss a longer term resolution, for example when we proposed a meeting with you in January. It was unfortunate that you were unable to meet the target date of meeting in March after your conference. We were pleased that we finally met on 30 April, and that we appeared to be making some progress in identifying issues and seeking to resolve them. It was disappointing that you had to postpone the agreed follow up meeting from the first week in May to 23 May, and that only then were you able to inform us that you had a deadline for just a week later.
We had sought to avoid going into details on the discussions in public, as we felt that might jeopardise progress. I am not clear what your purpose was in doing so. We continue to be disappointed by Oracles inability to compromise, and that after all of this time, this proposal so closely resembles the original proposal made last year. I would like to make quite clear what the OAUG has offered, and the flexibility that we have shown in being willing to move from the existing, successful model, to try to accommodate your valid needs to reach a wider audience.
The OAUG has proposed that :
7 The OAUG would be willing to collaborate with Oracle on their AppsWorld events in North America, if in return Oracle would participate in the OAUGs independent Fall North American conference to the extent of approximately sixty development staff.
7 The OAUG, in line with the majority of feedback received from European users, would be willing to collaborate with Oracle on their AppsWorld event in Europe.
7 The OAUG, after the Sydney Asia Pacific event which we have committed to in 2001, would be willing to collaborate with Oracle in their AppsWorld event in Asia Pacific, subject to clarification as to the form of that event.
I believe that is a more than reasonable proposal.
Given that Oracle decided to move these discussions into the public arena, that they did so in such an extensive way just a few hours after a discussion with the OAUG, and without giving any advance warning, I am forced to wonder whether Oracle are really negotiating in good faith in this matter
The OAUG has always stood for the independent voice of the user community. We have received consistent and clear feedback from our members that they wish have a forum for education and feedback which is, and can clearly be seen to be, independent from the Oracle message. We recognise Oracles marketing needs, and believe that our proposed compromise meets those needs, and the stated needs of existing users. If Oracle really had the interests of the users at heart it would not behave in this way. However such behaviour by Oracle only goes to reinforce the importance and value of a truly independent users group.
Jeremy Young
OAUG President
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