<story><title>CUNY paid Oracle $600M for its HR software (2013)</title><url>http://pscbc.blogspot.com/2013/03/cuny-first-computer-system-to-aid.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alberth</author><text>I know hating on Oracle is en vogue, but I struggle to believe this $600M figure.&lt;p&gt;a. I use to work in this space, even a $6M deal would be massive (let alone something 100x bigger).&lt;p&gt;b. The ENTIRE cuny budget in 2013 was only $2B [0]. This isn&amp;#x27;t their IT budget, this is literally the entire budget to run the entire university system across multiple campus, faculty, buildings, etc.&lt;p&gt;c. Because Higher Ed is known to be so cheap, especially in the late 00s - big tech companies charged accordingly (which was at a massive discount relative to most other accounts).&lt;p&gt;d. even if this $600M figure was an aggregated figure over multiple years, staffing and auxiliary costs - it still wouldn&amp;#x27;t come close to this figure.&lt;p&gt;e. an expenditure this large would definitely be called out in CUNY annual financial reports, and I can&amp;#x27;t seem to find any reference to it.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;media-assets&amp;#x2F;fy2014-state-adopted-budget.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;media-assets...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I did find reference last year to a $175M funding request to migrate from on-prem PeopleSoft (Oracle) to cloud.&lt;p&gt;Though, what I&amp;#x27;ve historically seen is that only 10-20% of the funding request actually go to the software vendor. Organizations typically add 3-5x additional to either &amp;quot;pad&amp;quot; their request (in the event it doesn&amp;#x27;t get &amp;#x27;fully funded&amp;#x27;) and&amp;#x2F;or this is an opportunity for the university to higher for a bunch of roles they wouldn&amp;#x27;t have been able to get funded in the first place - so lots of things get buried in these numbers.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the figures are also typically multi-year. Like 5-years being asked up front for approval.&lt;p&gt;Said differently, it wouln&amp;#x27;t surprise me if the true annual migration cost from onprem to cloud PeopleSoft might only be $10-20M&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;page-assets&amp;#x2F;about&amp;#x2F;administration&amp;#x2F;offices&amp;#x2F;budget-and-finance&amp;#x2F;Budget_Request_FY2023_FINAL_web_lr.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;page-assets&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>etempleton</author><text>I cannot imagine any college paying 600 million for such a thing. I suspect the writer is very much mistaken on the price and a bit paranoid on the College&amp;#x27;s motives. Perhaps it is 600 million over 10+ years.&lt;p&gt;Why they would ever go with Oracle is another mystery as there are a number of vendors who specialize in this type of software for colleges (some of it good, most of  it bad), so it would be foolish to explore a solution from Oracle that needs such a high level of customization to fit the needs of a University.</text></comment>
<story><title>CUNY paid Oracle $600M for its HR software (2013)</title><url>http://pscbc.blogspot.com/2013/03/cuny-first-computer-system-to-aid.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alberth</author><text>I know hating on Oracle is en vogue, but I struggle to believe this $600M figure.&lt;p&gt;a. I use to work in this space, even a $6M deal would be massive (let alone something 100x bigger).&lt;p&gt;b. The ENTIRE cuny budget in 2013 was only $2B [0]. This isn&amp;#x27;t their IT budget, this is literally the entire budget to run the entire university system across multiple campus, faculty, buildings, etc.&lt;p&gt;c. Because Higher Ed is known to be so cheap, especially in the late 00s - big tech companies charged accordingly (which was at a massive discount relative to most other accounts).&lt;p&gt;d. even if this $600M figure was an aggregated figure over multiple years, staffing and auxiliary costs - it still wouldn&amp;#x27;t come close to this figure.&lt;p&gt;e. an expenditure this large would definitely be called out in CUNY annual financial reports, and I can&amp;#x27;t seem to find any reference to it.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;media-assets&amp;#x2F;fy2014-state-adopted-budget.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;media-assets...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I did find reference last year to a $175M funding request to migrate from on-prem PeopleSoft (Oracle) to cloud.&lt;p&gt;Though, what I&amp;#x27;ve historically seen is that only 10-20% of the funding request actually go to the software vendor. Organizations typically add 3-5x additional to either &amp;quot;pad&amp;quot; their request (in the event it doesn&amp;#x27;t get &amp;#x27;fully funded&amp;#x27;) and&amp;#x2F;or this is an opportunity for the university to higher for a bunch of roles they wouldn&amp;#x27;t have been able to get funded in the first place - so lots of things get buried in these numbers.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, the figures are also typically multi-year. Like 5-years being asked up front for approval.&lt;p&gt;Said differently, it wouln&amp;#x27;t surprise me if the true annual migration cost from onprem to cloud PeopleSoft might only be $10-20M&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;page-assets&amp;#x2F;about&amp;#x2F;administration&amp;#x2F;offices&amp;#x2F;budget-and-finance&amp;#x2F;Budget_Request_FY2023_FINAL_web_lr.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cuny.edu&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;page-assets&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jeffwask</author><text>My first thought was for $800 million you could found your own startup to write an HRMS and have enough left over for a fleet of super cars.</text></comment>