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Tag: Shutterfly

  • Oracle Has a ‘Cloud-First’ Problem As Rivals Threaten Its Database Dominance

    Oracle Has a ‘Cloud-First’ Problem As Rivals Threaten Its Database Dominance

    Oracle may be the undisputed king of the database market, but cloud-first rivals are threatening that dominance with cheaper, more flexible options.

    Oracle has long been the dominant player in the database market. Even as the cloud has grown in importance, Oracle has managed to carve out a meaningful share of the market, thanks in large part to the strength of its database platform. Many customers see it as a full turn-key solution, combining the cloud and database solutions necessary. In spite of that, according to a report by Bloomberg, Oracle’s database dominance may be under threat from cloud-first rivals.

    Bloomberg cites the example of Shutterfly, which recently made the decision to move its database to the cloud. Despite relying on Oracle for years, the company decided to go in a different direction with the transition.

    Read more: Larry Ellison Touts Oracle Cloud’s Reliability in Wake of AWS Outage

    “The amount of time and energy that was consumed purely running just the plumbing was immense,” Chief Technology Officer Moudy Elbayadi said in an interview. A review of the existing options on the market led Shutterfly to conclude that Oracle’s solutions didn’t “fit our desires to have that level of openness and flexibility,” Elbayadi added.

    Unfortunately for Oracle, Shutterfly isn’t an isolated example. JPMorgan, Nasdaq Inc, JetBlue Airways Corp, and Automatic Data Process Inc are among the list of companies transitioning to non-Oracle options.

    “We have actually quite rapidly been reducing our Oracle footprint,” said Nikolai Larbalestier, Nasdaq’s senior vice president of cloud strategy and enterprise architecture. “There are plenty of good alternatives today.”

    Part of the problem stems from the complexity involved in running Oracle’s database and the cost to the client company of doing so. Mythical Games CEO John Linden emphasized the issue, despite his firm being valued at $1.2 billion.

    “Oracle hits us up every week,” he said. But “we’d have to have a massive team in place to run it appropriately.”

    See also: Google, Microsoft, and Oracle Had the Most Vulnerabilities in Early 2021

    Just as significant, Oracle’s tools seem to be developing a reputation for not being up to par with the latest developments, making the prospect of working with them unappealing to many developers.

    “I can’t even hire people if I told them that we majorly use Oracle,” Yao Morin, chief data officer at JLL Technologies, told Bloomberg. “People are yearning for better tools.”

    To be clear, Oracle is still the company to beat in the database market, especially among companies that want on-premise database solutions. Nonetheless, the company clearly has some significant areas it needs to improve on if it wants to remain relevant in the coming years. Otherwise, it may find itself in the same situation as IBM when personal computers replaced mainframes — the undisputed leader of a niche market.

  • Shutterfly Congratulates You on Your Non-Existent New Baby

    Popular photo printing company Shutterfly has learned the dangers of mass emails the hard way, and has been forced to apologize after congratulating a bunch of new parents on their recent bundles of joy.

    What’s wrong with congratulating new parents via email? Well, nothing–if the person is actually a new parent.

    Surprise!

    “There’s nothing more amazing that bringing a new life into the world. As a new parent you’re going to find more to love, move the give and more to share–we’re here to help you every step of the way,” read the email. “Now it’s time to send thank you cards. Find one that matches your birth announcement.”

    Shutterfly has issued an apology via Twitter, saying that the emails were sent unintentionally.

    At first glance, it may seem like a harmless mistake. But then you start to think about all the women who really, really don’t want to see an email like that:

    Yikes.

    Image via Cynthia White, Twitter

  • Groupon Appoints Shutterfly CEO Jeffrey Housenbold As New Director

    Groupon announced on Wednesday that it has appointed Shutterfly president and CEO Jeffrey Housenbold to its Board of Directors.

    He has led Shutterfly since January of 2005. Before that, he worked at eBay in various roles like Vice President of Business Development and Internet Marketing, Vice President & General Manager, Business-to-Consumer Group and Vice President, Mergers & Acquisitions. He is currently a director at Shutterfly and serves on the Boards of Caesars Entertainment Corporation and Chegg. He’s also on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Mellon University.

    “We are thrilled to welcome Jeffrey to the Groupon board,” said Groupon Chairman Ted Leonsis. “He brings tremendous expertise and energy, as well as a demonstrated history of innovation and leadership. We look forward to his perspective as Groupon continues to grow and evolve.”

    “In just five years, Groupon has proven to be a disruptive force in how consumers discover the world around them,” Housenbold said. “As a company firmly established at the intersection of local and mobile, few others are as well positioned as Groupon to take advantage of this evolving marketplace. I look forward to working with this high caliber board and management team.”

    Earlier this month, Groupon appointed four new executives: Robbie Schwietzer as the new Senior Vice President of Operations; Lisa Kennedy as the new Vice President, General Manager, of Groupon Reserve; David Kerr as the new Vice President, General Manager, of Home Services; Hoke Horne as the new Vice President of Global Commercial Finance.

    More on their roles here.

    Image: Businesswire

  • Shutterfly Acquires Cloud Photo Service ThisLife

    Shutterfly, the popular site for personalized photo products best known for their customizable photo books, has just announced the acquisition of ThisLife, a cloud-based photo storage and organizational site that allows users to compile all of their personal photos and videos into a unique timeline.

    Financial details of the purchase have yet to be made available.

    “Since 1999, Shutterfly has made it easier for consumers to be more creative with their memories,” said Jeffrey Housenbold, president and CEO of Shutterfly. “The combination of ThisLife’s best in class cloud organization and storage solution with Shutterfly’s award-winning product creation paths, uniquely positions Shutterfly to be the leading full service solution for storing, organizing, and sharing life most important memories.”

    According to Shutterfly, they will begin to incorporate ThisLife’s organizational technology into their service in the coming months.

    “Consumers will be able to safely and easily preserve, organize and share their memories, regardless of where photos are stored — from Facebook to Picasa to mobile phones. ThisLife’s intelligent organization platform offers features like facial recognition and presents photos and albums in an elegant timeline for convenient sharing and product creation,” says the company in a release.

    Shutterfly with absorb ThisLife’s team, including the site’s co-founders Andrea and Matt Johnson.

    Shutterfly’s umbrella covers other popular services like Tiny Prints, Wedding Paper Divas, and Treat.

  • Kodak Announces Shutterfly Takeover

    Last month, camera and film giant Kodak announced Shutterfly would be buying out their online gallery for $24 million, and today sent out a press release regarding the acquisition and what it will mean for users.

    The Kodak Gallery is important for users of their products, as it houses images and stores them online for free; many were worried a move as big as this would affect their accounts. But Shutterfly insists there will be no big changes and that they will work hard to make sure each and every photo–more than five billion–is transferred safely to their site.

    “I am thrilled to welcome millions of Kodak Gallery customers to the Shutterfly family. Our priority is to ensure every photo gets safely and securely transferred to Shutterfly,” said Shutterfly president Jeffrey Housenbold. “We promise to make the transfer process very easy for customers and will communicate our progress every step of the way. I want to thank Kodak Gallery customers for trusting Shutterfly with their precious photos and look forward to helping them enhance the way they share and preserve memories.”

    The acquisition comes after Kodak announced they are filing for bankruptcy and will halt production of their camera lines; the company was unable to keep up with the digital demands of customers and has seen a sharp decline in sales over the years. The Shutterfly deal is part of their attempt to keep from hemorrhaging money as they move towards home-printing products and business solutions.

    Kodak said about Shutterfly:

    “Their services include free, unlimited storage and 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantee. Working together, we will securely transfer your account photos to them free of charge. We are absolutely committed to making this transition as smooth and easy as possible.”

    Customers have until May 28th to opt out of linking their Kodak account to a Shutterfly account; after that date, they can either link accounts or Shutterfly will automatically start shuttling images over to their site.

  • Shutterfly Soars with Pending Kodak Gallery Acquisition

    After buying TinyPrints last year for $300 million, Shutterfly is about to acquire parts of Kodak’s online photo service for $23.8 million dollars. Kodak is parting out its Gallery after filing for bankruptcy.

    The agreement will transfer U.S. and Canadian customer accounts to Shutterfly. Current Kodak customers who are in opposition to the transfer can select to opt out of the program.

    Kodak’s proposed deal with Shutterfly is pending approval and will have to be filtered through U.S. Bankruptcy and Court proceedings. A decision is expected to be reached by the end of March.

    Kodak will also be discontinuing their line of digital cameras, camcorders, and picture frames but they are not out of the photo business just yet. The Rochester-based company plans on shifting towards developing home printing products and retail and destination photo solutions.

    One Twitter user, pPatil, was surprised that Kodak was able to get as much as they did from Shutterfly:

    @peepultree
    pPatil    Kodak gallery is worth 24M USD? (Shutterfly bought it for that much): http://t.co/eiGE7bVj 10 hours ago  via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto