I think it's much more simple...
"So what has depressed it?"
The article blames it on the market (and some of its other players) but I can't help think that Oracle played a huge role in this themselves as well. Just check some Oracle news stories over the past years and pay extra attention to the general tone of the user comments. More than often do you read stories about unhappy people. Some noticed how Oracle raised their subscription plans in triple (and many ran off), then we read stories about Oracle trying to push Java patents which shows even more comments about people getting turned off from Oracle, then a few months back yet another story about Oracle raising their prices tremendously....
Summing up: there are plenty of people around who have had negative experiences with Oracle in one way or the other which involved a huge increase in costs while hardly getting much back from it in return.
So here's a question for you: do you honestly think those people would seriously consider Oracle for hardware? Wouldn't you consider it possible that the moment they see other people using Oracle's services that chances become high that they might warn them about Oracle and their sometimes bizarre business model (and drastic price increases)? Basically and effectively scaring even more people away from them?
Never underestimate how quickly a bad experience with a company can travel and spread around.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
