Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

[andyklee]

Interesting article today about Oracle demanding information from Rimini Street: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/170925/oracle_demands_information_from_rimini_street.html
If there are any Rimini Street customers on E1 reading this, it would be interesting to hear from you. Received any downloads from Oracle's support site (i.e., fixes) that you aren't entitled to lately?

My company supported a few World customers with 3rd party maintenance a few years ago, but we stayed away from E1 support--realizing that it would be next to impossible to support the middleware and the technical infrastructure without resorting to illegal downloads.

Andy
JDEtips.com

 

[cncjunior1]

We just had a meeting with Rimini Streen a few weeks ago at the client I have been working at and they are seriously considering going off Oracle support due to the cost. Thanks for the article. I'll be sure to pass this along to management here.

 

[altquark]

I'm not surprised. Anything related in any way to TomorrowNow was doomed to failure. I've been telling people - both consultants AND customers - to steer well clear of illegal support practices.

When TomorrowNow fell over, a large number of customers were left without support in the marketplace - only a handful were able to renegotiate maintenance contracts again. The same is going to happen with the Rimini Street customers. If you dumped Oracle in lieu of illegal support, you're likely going to be ending up with no support at all.

As for those people who worked for Rimini ? Well, I know several who got "dropped" - even though Rimini was supposed to be "expanding" - I expect those people to be subpoenaed for their role in the Rimini scam.

 

[andyklee]

Jon, do you have any inside knowledge about Rimini Street? Any illegal
downloads? Do you agree that it is just about impossible to keep an E1
client going for longer than 18 months without access to patches from
Oracle?

Andy

 

[altquark]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

I know of people that worked at Rimini. I know they had access to the knowledge garden. And yes, it is not possible to support JDE without maintenance unless you freeze the code and updates.

 

[morglum666]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. We've been off support for 3 years or so, and theres been no delay to any development.

If you have a situation like yearly tax updates, then you need to make sure the third party can handle it, but other than that if your build environment(s) are clean, theres no reason to fear continuing development.

My $.02

Morglum

 

[altquark]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. We've been off support for 3 years or so, and theres been no delay to any development.

[/ QUOTE ]
Where are you getting your patches from ?

The point is, that if Rimini are providing customers with ESU's - and you don't have a maintenance agreement with Oracle, then they're breaking the law.

This is why TomorrowNow got shut down, and Oracle is in process of suing SAP for billions of $$$. The customers are also liable, since they're the ones actually implementing the stolen sourcecode.

If a single line of sourcecode has been distributed by Rimini to any of its customers (ie, any ESU's or tools releases) - then Rimini is going to get sued for billions too.

If your company has "been off support for 3 years or so" and been getting patches or ESU's, expect a subpoena.

 

[Alex_Pastuhov]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

I guess, if the customer were to join Oracle partnership program of any kind directly, they would have access to these patches themselves.

On the other hand, I know sites that haven't taken any updates for a few years...

 

[altquark]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, I know sites that haven't taken any updates for a few years...

[/ QUOTE ]
Right - so do I. These customers are perfectly suited to drop Oracle maintenance.

Heres my view of a customers lifecycle...

1. Purchase ERP system
2. Implement
3. Go-live
4. Fix/Maintain
5. Either upgrade or freeze functionality and code

At step 5, the choice can be made whether to continue maintenance or not. If they choose to upgrade, then they go back to step 2. But, if they become comfortable enough with the system, then why not freeze code for 5+ years ? That way, they get a lot of ROI back from their implementation, and it puts them in a position where they can renegotiate for a new ERP system again in the future. I know companies that have gone through this cycle. Anyone who was on Xe, and was reliably on Xe after 2003 or so, should have considered this option - since saving 10 years of maintenance payments would have paid for TWO ERP systems !

Customers usually pay around 17-20% of list price for maintenance. Its easy math to see that if they had chosen to freeze their codeset, they could have saved money.

As to your other point, Alex, about a customer getting updates as a partner ? If they weren't on maintenance, and they became a business partner, they'd also be in a legal issue since partners cannot implement bug patches (ESU's) on customers production systems (especially theirs) without a maintenance agreement. Otherwise, everyone would just be paying the low partner agreement price and not maintenance !

Services like Rimini Street do not make any sense. Rimini can not be a replacement for JDE's bug patches - it can only be a response line service, and to be honest just having a retainer with a good E1 specialist is a lot less expensive and provides just as good a "response" !

 

[morglum666]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

Its definitely a "It depends" type of situation, which the business owners don't like to hear. But due to that I don't think a blanket statement is fair.

Since upgrading to 8.9 (Don't laugh) from Xe while still on Oracle support I believe the total amount of ESU's I used were 4, one or two were related to the planner, and there was one for the deployment server when it was upgraded to win 2003 server.The other 300+ modifications I wrote myself.

We use another company like rimini as a help desk, and I find it worthwhile. You have to remember that geographically - not everyone has access to good consultants!. When I was with JDE in a consulting role, I recall going to one site on the east coast of Canada and they remarked that I was the first consultant to visit in literally years.

In terms of specialized knowledge you can also get help with doing your own development as this company (and probably rimini) have developers who you can discuss your own code, best BSFN's, etc. There are minefields you have to watch out for - our management and legal agreed that the third party support would only view our screens via webex type screens, no logs, and we would not use or request any code to be developed from them.

We're a fairly small shop, 30 or so users, multi currency, multi language, several remote networks in europe, one main site with mixed web and windows clients. As your needs increase, the possibility of going off vendor support could decline, unless you have enough experienced developers and have solved any annual procedures.

There is certainly a point in time where the returns decline, however. Just before we went off support the most important task I did was to work with other people in the IT department to upgrade our OS's, databases, websphere, etc, to the highest level possible that was supported with our service pack. What I expected to happen - and has begun to happen - is that some of our technologies have become so out of date that they are no longer officially supportable, notably Oracle. This leads to some friction as other members of IT want to modernize and I literally can't guarantee a stable system if we move out of the MTR's (Or whatever they are called now). You can also easily run into trouble with third party tools - Vertex, Createform, etc.We've been ok in the short term but within a year or two I'm going to push harder for an upgrade. Your mileage may vary.

Morglum

 

[gregglarkin]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

[ QUOTE ]


What I expected to happen - and has begun to happen - is that some of our technologies have become so out of date that they are no longer officially supportable, notably Oracle. This leads to some friction as other members of IT want to modernize and I literally can't guarantee a stable system if we move out of the MTR's (Or whatever they are called now). You can also easily run into trouble with third party tools - Vertex, Createform, etc.We've been ok in the short term but within a year or two I'm going to push harder for an upgrade. Your mileage may vary.



[/ QUOTE ]

Morglum,

That last paragraph sounds VERY familiar. You are at the same point we were at when we went off of TomorrowNow support and came back on Oracle support. Like you, we were able to do development just fine, but after three years of third party support, the foundation layer was out of date and needed a major upgrade. Keep pushing to get back on support and upgrade to 9.0.

 

[altquark]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

morglum

I agree with everything you state. There ARE shops out there that CAN continue to run with internal support/development only. I still call that "frozen code" - frozen as far as JDE/Oracle is concerned. You might continue to develop the code internally, but you resolve to not take any JDE patches at all. At that point, you can certainly drop Oracle maintenance. Smaller shops are more likely to get to that position than larger shops.

I also have no issue with consultants or consulting practices providing management support for these customers. Providing they are resigned to the fact that they can never access any information on Oracles online libraries, then there is no legal issue.

The issue is where a management support company handles multiple customers - and that some have maintenance, or are coming off maintenance later than other customers. The temptation is there when an ESU fixes a bug in a customer that HAS maintenance, and the same bug exists in the other customer. Even if the company has a policy in place, the fact is that it is up to the actual employees to enforce that policy, and the customer might literally scream for that bug to be fixed. Knowing there is a fix, and being between a rock and a hard place, bad decisions might be made.

Even if an ESU isn't applied, and the code is written in exactly the same way as the original ESU - there would be enough code similarity to support the fact that the fix was "downloaded" - which would cause the management company a lot of legal headaches.

I did receive a phone call from an ex-Rimini employee over the weekend. Sounds like there is a basis for Oracle to be asking for this information. I would not be surprised if certain management companies are handed a "cease and desist" order. We'll have to see.

 

[morglum666]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

>>I did receive a phone call from an ex-Rimini employee over the weekend. Sounds like there is a basis for Oracle to be asking for this information. I would not be surprised if certain management companies are handed a "cease and desist" order. We'll have to see.

I would not be surprised at all. Fundamentally, none of this matters - shops like my employer are most likely to find a replacement for JDE and convert their data in due time. Oracle consistently dissapoints in terms of value for their support dollars. What is it now, 22%?

So in the end, unless Oracle picks it up for some shops they are just eventually going to lose a lot of customers and they deserve that fate. When our former IT manager was telling Oracle that they were considering dropping support Oracle didn't counter in the slightest. Pride cometh before the fall.

The only sad part is that as an ex-JDE employee since I also have the displeasure of working with other large scale "Enterprise" apps, I have yet to find one like JDE that is well designed and free of most fundamental flaws. I always hope that the next generation of software will be better built; more intelligently designed, friendly UI, etc and I'm usually disappointed.

I've done quite a bit of work with Siebel lately and I think its really on the right track, but that's the only other large scale app I can think of that I like. Then again, I actually like the quirky apps like Crystal Reports so I wouldn't put any stock in that..


Morglum

 

[DBohner-(db)]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

Morglum (et.al),
Lately - I have had STELLAR support form Oracle - resolving issues for my clients!

If the Customer has the ability to explain the issue to Oracle - they fix it. The issue - usually the Customer can't explain the issue. Sort of like the wife asking the husband to change the light (but, not telling which one). Most husbands would just go back to the TV (and I don't blame them). Then, the wife will complain that their 'Value for the Dollars' is dropping (heck, they married the dude).

When a customer spends the time to analyse the problem such that they can explain it - then Oracle can (and is) fixes it. Personally, I don't log the call - till I know it is broke and have a good reason 'why'.

Your Mileage may Very - but, I'm putting my 'arbitrary' approval bases in the High 90%. I'm not sure where you get your 22% figures (maybe SAP or some other 3rd party vender?). Maybe I missed the memo?

(db)

 

[altquark]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

maintenance isn't something that oracle - or even ANY vendor - likes to negotiate. I don't think its 22% of list - I think maintenance is more like 17% (but I might be wrong). Maintenance is a standard in the ERP space - and a lot of CIO's just don't get what they're paying for (but many of todays new CIO's come from Microsoft Exchange backgrounds - rather than traditional enterprise sytems !)

Anyhows - Oracle isn't really going to mind if a company drops support. Look at what happened to Greggs company - they soon came back and renegotiated when they wanted to upgrade. They probably saved a little $$$ - but most of the time, if you choose to drop maintenance and THEN want to upgrade, its going to cost quite a bit of $$$. Pay over time or pay all at once - the choice is yours.

Remember, once an ERP vendor gets you sold on software, 5 years down the road you then have to consider whether you should just upgrade or switch to another vendor. Oracle knows perfectly well that the cost to switch to another vendor is astronomical.

So sales reps aren't given permission to negotiate on maintenance. They don't get paid commission on maintenance either (I believe) - so they really don't care. They DO want to sell you every other product they own however !!!!!

Oracle support is good, providing you provide as much information as possible. I don't use them too often myself - but each time I do, I get passed to a quality individual, and they resolve the issues. But I pre-empt the call by placing the call on the web, and attaching every log and debug and screenprint I can possibly attach before I then follow up with a phone call !

 

[gregglarkin]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

[ QUOTE ]
Oracle support is good, providing you provide as much information as possible. I don't use them too often myself - but each time I do, I get passed to a quality individual, and they resolve the issues. But I pre-empt the call by placing the call on the web, and attaching every log and debug and screenprint I can possibly attach before I then follow up with a phone call !

[/ QUOTE ]

You and Bonner make a good point - an experienced CNC tries to troubleshoot the issue first, documents the crap out of the issue before sending it up to support. Then the issue tends to get resolved pretty quickly. That has been my experience as well.

- Gregg

 

[cncjunior1]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

In previous threads everyone wants to bash Oracle support and how terrible they are. Now in this thread everyone is saying how great they are. So which one is it?

As far as getting a quality support rep assigned to a case my luck is about 50/50. I agree that the more information you give up front the better luck you have, but I still find myself teaching the support rep a thing or two how JDE works many times. Overall I would say web server related issues have taken the longest to resolve, probably because the web environment has changed so much over the last few years.

 

[DBohner-(db)]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

There has been history where JDE Support was so bad... EWE.

Lately, I have had exceptional help! Maybe I'm just doing a better job documenting the issues or maybe they have released the folks that didn't care to understand the issues.

I know there are some folks in E1 Support that still "don't" get it... My co-worker has been redefining the same issue for almost six months. The support analyst is still trying to fix a problem he has never explained to them (I've helped rewrite, document and provide examples of the tax issue - I know it is properly documented!)....

For the last six months, my issues have been treated and resolved much better than previous years. But then, I keep getting the same Support Analyst (maybe they just see my name in the queue and know, I have already done the leg work and know that either something is really broke or I already have a fix in mind - so they claim the ticket as soon as they see my name know it will have a quick turn around?)

Your mileage may vary - but, being able to explain the issue (more than just saying, "IT'S BROKE" - goes a long way.

(db)

 

[altquark]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

[ QUOTE ]
There has been history where JDE Support was so bad...

[/ QUOTE ]

Right. Under JDE themselves, depending on the type of area - you got some calls answered quickly, other calls sat forever. GSS (Global Support) was infamous for closing unresolved calls and generally annoying the frock out of the community.

JDEList and other "free" services seem to resolve issues faster than the paid-for maintenance, and customers immediately felt they were being taken advantage of. The actuality is that these "free" resolutions often, when tracked back, stemmed back to a solution that was initiated by JDE in the first place - but might be posted anonymously due to fear of retribution by JDE.

When Peoplesoft came along, my feeling is that support became a lot worse - the knowledge garden got replaced with customer connection, and the quality of staff was often replaced by foreign, cheaper workers who had no clue about what you were running. The initial contact is the most important in any call, and both customer connection and the offshore reponse centers just sucked in those regards.

Since Oracle has taken over, they've had some shaky issues with the knowledge garden especially with Metalink3, and the perception that most of the information had been lost. Moving to yet another knowledge garden this past week doesn't help things either. But, Oracle has definitely improved support - personally my first call is not over the phone - so I never get anyone in India or at an offshore location - instead, I'm almost immediately routed to someone in Denver, so I feel support is generally "good".

Of course, the majority of MY support issues are usually Technical (with the occasional functional issue that I have to handle for some customers).

Also, the GSS team usually likes dealing with someone who understands the architecture and the product. I provide all the information, and they're a lot more willing to help based on this - its more "low hanging fruit" for the support tech since they perceive the call as either being easier to close, either successfully or transferred to a developer as a SAR.

What customers fail to understand - and this is the most important factor when it comes to this thread - is that there are a LARGE number of issues and bugs that are resolved in either an ESU or a Tools Release. If you don't have maintenance, you don't have access to this resource. Simple as that. If either of those resources are provided to you outside of maintenance - then you're actually ripping off Oracle Code, and your company is legally in a bad situation. What makes it worse is that when you're using a maintenance company, you might not even know that the maintenance company is doing this - and you're actually placing a huge risk on your company.

If Rimini is guilty of implementing ESU's or Tools Releases on customers who do not have support contracts, then also expect Oracle to make an example out of some of those companies too....ignorance is no defense in the eyes of the law...

 

[ebearman]

Re: RE: Rimini Street and other 3rd Party support for E1

There is a new development in the Rimini Street/Oracle battle - http://tinyurl.com/ydurycj