> Oracle was/is powered by zero innovation and all enterprise sales.

Oracle has one of the last couple of proper industrial research labs left in the industry.

It regularly publishes at the top venues in multiple fields and funds a lot of academics.

Also Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM... and others

Examples?

Usually they have a paper at Sigmod

2018: https://sigmod2018.org/sigmod_industrial_list.shtml

RAPID: In-Memory Analytical Query Processing Engine with Extreme Performance per Watt

2020: https://sigmod2020.org/sigmod_industrial_list.shtml

Database Workload Capacity Planning using Time Series Analysis and Machine Learning

[citation needed]

Less sarcastically, I’d like to see some examples of this as I have a genuine interest in the topic.

> I thought the idea of Microsoft buying TikTok was funny

You're not wrong - it is a little funny.

But on the other hand, they have been running LinkedIn (and Github!) pretty successfully, so it's not that ridiculous.

> running LinkedIn pretty successfully

Minus the avoidable password breaches

You mean the 2012 password breach that happened 4 years before Microsoft acquired the company?

Meh. Require everyone to submit a TLS client certificate to be able to login.

LinkedIn and Github are not TikTok :)

True, but they have both operated independently & incredibly successfully with full support from Microsoft’s leadership. If TikTok had a future, it was at Microsoft.

And Microsoft has a pretty successful consumer products division -- not the cash cow that enterprise sales are to them, but they do have consumer products. Including the Xbox division, which targets a lot of the market that TikTok does. Exactly what direct-to-consumer business targeting people in their teens/early 20s does Oracle have?

> Exactly what direct-to-consumer business targeting people in their teens/early 20s does Oracle have?

Ah, but therein lies the genius of the purchase.

In 40 years, the current TikTok userbase will be technology-hating, risk-adverse VPs -- a prime Oracle demographic.

They're just getting in early.

Speaking of which, I remember when my friends thought Minecraft was going to die because Microsoft bought Mojang.

Speaking of which, I remember when I thought Minecraft andead because Microsoft bought them.d Mojang were

I know people who worked (full time) for Oracle who didn't even need to go to the office, they just did stuff remotely from time to time (never more than one hour/day). They actually had a second full time job that they went to.

Wait Oracle doesn't have open floor plans?

I guess I'll be polishing my resume.

When I was at Oracle I had a private locking office with a window with a mountain view as an intern.

Amazing. When was that?

2013. They’re still in the same offices though.

They paid for an apartment and car as well!

It’s a great place to be, actually.

How is that possible? Is there just a really high supply of window offices? ie. does the office building have a really high window to floor area ratio?

Thin buildings produce a surprising amount of exterior windows. The last high rise I worked in put most of the common functionality near the core (hallways, bathrooms, elevators, printers) to maximize the amount of work space that had a view.

Sadly it was looking out over the West side of Chicago from the West side of the loop, so the view was mediocre even when the weather played nice.

It makes sense when you realise the building is in the shape of a giant pentagram.

Big server rooms and fabrication labs in the middle, and some support staff in cubicles.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (where I work) certainly does. It's about similar working environment to most tech companies in the area, so not exactly something to be driving me to seek employment elsewhere.

One of the nice things about this pandemic has been how silent my office is. So much easier to keep my head down and churn code / solutions to problems out.

Depends. I know someone who has an open office floor. The benefit is that the floors that have open offices have newer cafeterias and more amenities than the ones without open offices. Plus, the offices are pretty empty, even if they are open office.

Yes when I worked there a guy literally played WoW in his cubicle all day. It was no secret. He didn’t get fired for performance either, just culled in a RIF lol.

Technically that would make it a startup incubator :-)

The only reason for Oracle to buy TikTok is purely political. It is a 'truly' us company not a CCP company. And I trust NSA more than I trust CCP.