4/2/2002 -- Sometimes, things happen to make me wish I was Dennis Miller. You know the guy, the former Saturday Night Life Weekend Update anchor and comedian, who now has his own cable TV show where he gets to rant about different topics. It's just that I feel like ranting as I sit to write this column. This rant is about how a company can state one thing publicly, but when you look at their policies, licensing agreements, and practices, the reality is quite different. As you may have guessed, the focus of my rant is that great purveyor of database software we know and love -- Oracle. They say they want more certified individuals, but how easy do they make it?

At Oracle OpenWorld we were all informed of changes to the certifications available on Oracle. These changes, in my mind, are welcome and allow employers to have some sense of which individuals have basic skills to be junior DBAs, DBAs and senior DBAs by their certifications-- Oracle Certified Associate (OCA), Oracle Certified Professional (OCP), and Oracle Certified Master (OCM), respectively.

My thinking has always been that when you announce that you want more certified individuals and you create an entry-level certification such as the OCA, you are expecting a flood (or at least more than a trickle) of people to get certified. Logically, you may also want to ensure that as many quality venues for certification are available for these folks. Interestingly, it appears that Oracle's position is that they want to train everyone themselves and take all the training money. Oh, if anyone else wants to train people on Oracle's products, let's make it tougher for them to do that because we don't make any money off them. I didn't just pull this idea out of thin air, folks -- read on!

Very recently, a company that I have had some dealings with, and which was an Oracle Education Center, had their relationship with Oracle terminated. I'm not going to bore you with the details of what caused the termination, but let's just say that neither Oracle nor the company's management were angels and the break-up was messy, just like any divorce might be. Afterward, this company was encouraged by their clients to continue to offer Oracle training because of the knowledge and experience of their instructors. The management of the training center decided that they would develop their own courseware (at their expense) and offer training on Oracle's database products to their existing client base. The only thing that they needed was licenses for the software that would be used in the classroom. No problem, Oracle must have a license that deals with this.

Anyone who has taken Oracle University courses will tell you that they are available at Oracle itself or at an Oracle Education Center. Whether you take the class at Oracle or an Education Center, which is a third-party organization licensed by Oracle to offer Oracle University courses, you will have the opportunity to practice using actual Oracle software and won't think twice that this is not the logical way of learning the product. So, by past experience you would naturally assume that Oracle does indeed have software licenses that can be used for training purposes, and that's where you'd be completely wrong! In all Oracle license agreements that I have read, from the Oracle Technology Network to evaluation software to full-packaged product, using Oracle software for classroom training is explicitly forbidden. Oracle makes it quite clear: You can't teach others on Oracle's software using Oracle's software. This restriction begs the question: "If client A purchases Oracle's products for their business and acquires a sufficient number of licenses, are they legally able to train their staff in house without turning to Oracle for trainers and training?" According to the terms of the license agreement, the answer is unclear. Either way, Oracle is essentially forcing its customers to only use it or Oracle Education Centers when getting their staff up to speed on their products. The obvious question is why?

I can't speak for Oracle (and they probably wish I wouldn't speak about them), but after what I have seen in the last few months with that company I spoke of earlier, the only thing I come up with is that this is a cash grab. Yes, one could say the policy has to do with quality control of the courseware or instructors,; however, I don't think that argument plays out in the real world. Oracle University courseware is not always the best or most accurate, and while Oracle's internal trainers are indeed good, I have met third-party trainers teaching Oracle that are just as good or better. Many third-party companies that used to offer classes on Oracle, or courseware for Oracle, no longer do so, or have been told to cease because they don't have software licenses. If Oracle does not have software licenses to cover use of its products in a classroom environment, what are Oracle Education Centers using, or is Oracle selectively enforcing its software licenses?

A Different Approach
I hate to do what I'm about to do because Microsoft is not always a model that I offer to clients or students, but I have to admit that Microsoft's approach to certification and training delivery makes much more sense, to me at least. So what has Microsoft done right, even after flip-flopping on a number of key issues in certification like not requiring Microsoft Certified Trainers to pass exams related to their courses they say they can teach or the attempt to force MCSEs to upgrade their certifications to Windows 2000 to remain certified, which backfired as badly as New Coke? It is not any one thing, but their general philosophy towards getting people trained and certified on their products is more flexible.

Microsoft doesn't offer training itself but relies on Certified Technical Education Centers (CTECs) to offer Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC) courses to end users. It controls the courseware and outlines requirements for hardware and minimum certification of MCTs to provide the courses, and charges a license fee for the course kits. Every course kit comes with software that can be used for training purposes – the license says so – but it expires after a specified time period.

If you don't want to take the course at a CTEC, no problem. Microsoft does not interfere with others who want to offer training on Microsoft products. It just does not bless these third parties as being official Microsoft training partners. There's no preventing them from using evaluation copies of its software in the training function. And that is the big difference between Microsoft and Oracle.

O.K., I'll Get to the Point
I may be naïve but I generally believe that trusting people to do the right thing and not misuse the privileges you grant them will empower them more and achieve the desired result quicker than being draconian and enforcing rigid rules. At the same time, you want to ensure that your interests are protected. In the case of training and getting more certified individuals in the marketplace -- who, in turn, can help to continue to evangelize your product -- Microsoft trusts folks more than Oracle. There are far more third-party books and training resources for Microsoft SQL Server than there are for Oracle. And with every certification title that I have seen for SQL Server you get a 120 day evaluation of the product – I have not seen this in any Oracle certification title.

If Oracle wants to continue to grow the ranks of Oracle certified individuals and make it easier and less expensive (Oracle University courses are ridiculously overpriced!) for people to learn how to use their software for training purposes legally, they need to allow their software to be used to train people legally. I know the revenue stream is important today, but are you willing to see it disappear tomorrow and have clients move to different databases – maybe even SQL Server?

O.K., that's it…rant over.

I just shake my head and wonder sometimes. Maybe I'm getting too old for this...

What do you think? Post your comments below!