Why do competitors hate Oracle?

Chances are you either have a strong aversion or fondness for some IT vendors—just take a glance at the Talkback of any Microsoft vs. Linux story and you'll see what I mean. But the same goes for IT vendors. No they don't love or hate you, but some, for example, seem to loathe a particular competitor, Oracle.  So says a recent article on IT.Director.com. The author, Bloor Researcher's Philip Howard, points out they're ganging up on the enterprise software bully. 

Consider the database market. Which vendor is being targeted by SQL Server 2005 and for which Microsoft has specific facilities for migrating customers from that environment? Oracle. Now think of IBM: which supplier does it see as the arch-enemy for DB2 and who is it targeting with its latest marketing campaign? Oracle. Who was the principal target for CA's million dollar challenge for the Ingres open source environment? Oracle.

Howard thinks that this is because the competition sees weaknesses in Oracle rather than simply acting uniformly by hatred or dislike. He runs with the idea that the company is vulnerable, poking holes at the software giant’s products and strategy. Do you agree with Howard?