Rob Enderle, never shy to point out what’s wrong with Oracle, goes on to explain why Oracle’s recent CFO change can be read as a sign of bad times ahead, and cautious Oracle’s customers to check their bill… what he doesn’t say, though, is that based on his reasoning, you should probably be checking if you’re in compliance with your licensing soon, else an audit may come costly.
Back in the 80s, IBM, which was facing revenue shortfalls due largely to the combination of a series of bad decisions, began raising prices indiscriminately. Nearly a decade later, Microsoft, in an attempt to make pricing simpler, found a large number of companies that were underpaying their contracts and it instituted corrective action. In both cases, the CIOs were caught unprepared and the result was a largely unplanned move to either slow or reverse the use of the companies’ products.
It would appear that Oracle is likely to either be on, or to shortly be on, a similar path (much of what I currently have are anecdotal complaints on Oracle pricing at the moment). However, it would be prudent to monitor recurring Oracle pricing and make sure increases appear justified and that trends won’t cause them to cross over so you can either anticipate a move or be assured that an executive review won’t force an unplanned migration. This practice is prudent with any large vendor, but given the recent CFO changes at Oracle, its history and recent contract changes on the hardware side of the company, it may be more critical with Oracle.