Oracle criticised for keeping secrets

Following its US$10 billion acquisition of Peoplesoft, Oracle has refused to divulge any region-specific information about the number of employees that will be retained following the deal. So far the company has simply said that globally there will be around 5,000 job losses.

According to Jeff Henley, Oracle's chairman, the company 'does a pretty good job' of informing its customers and investors about its status.

"As a public company we think we do a pretty good job giving investors information about the company. We give them a lot of regional information and line of business profitability," said Henley in Sydney on Wednesday.

This is disputed by a senior industry analyst at an international research organisation who has requested anonymity. According to the analyst, Oracle is notoriously bad at giving out information compared with other companies in the same industry.

"It is also not in line with the industry. We get fantastic co-operation from every other enterprise applications company -- even Oracle's biggest competitors are happy to talk about these things," the analyst said.

According to the analyst, Oracle's decision to divulge as little information as possible comes from the company's chief executive Larry Ellison.

"It comes right from the top - from Ellison himself," the analyst said.

However, Henley said that Oracle is not being evasive. Instead, he argues that the company's customers and investors are not interested in 'minute details' - especially when they could give Oracle's competitors an advantage.

"We never get investors that care about what we are doing in Australia. We have customers in Australia... they rarely care about exactly how many employees we have here. Frankly, I am not interested in telling my competitors exactly how many people we have in Australia. We are not trying to be evasive, we are trying to keep information away from our competitors," said Henley.

This 'paranoia' is not helping the company, according to the analyst.

"Oracle does not want its competitors to know what is going on but the problem is that its customers and independent investors miss out. In a number of roles I have had, Oracle is the least forthcoming in providing information," the analyst said.