Just when I thought I would stop moaning about Oracle, and avoid accusations of paranoia, I learned that back in my hometown of England, Oracle has been bragging about how since they announced Exadata, Netezza haven't closed a single deal. Apart from the fact that this simply isn't true, it's an odd claim for a vendor 100 times our size and one known for making bold claims. How about a bit of bragging about how many Exadata deals Oracle has closed? Isn't that the yardstick for success?

Oracle has been in the data management business some 25 years longer than Netezza. Based on understanding their own clients’ business strategies, Oracle has advised thousands of companies on their IT strategy and - in numerous cases - this advice has even been paid for. So any notion that Oracle didn't see the explosion of data and analytics looming on the horizon is ridiculous. Quite frankly, if Oracle had done their job properly, Netezza would have never existed in the first place!

So here's the crunch. Given Oracle is a trusted IT advisor with the inside track, reputation and relationship with tens of thousands of companies, Exadata's progress in the market since September 2008 has been appalling. And let's not forget that with 100 times the muscle of Netezza other benefits come to play -- like brand recognition, marketing and sales coverage, misleading ads in the Wall Street Journal, partner leverage and so on.

Rather than crowing about their success, they should be blushing with sheer embarrassment.

With such a poor track record, one can only conclude that Exadata can't be very good. Think about it: if a little start-up, like Dataupia or Greenplum, had released it no one would be taking it seriously. This suggests that the only thing of any value with this machine is the little plastic button on the front that says "Oracle"!

I'm still sleeping at night.