Oracle accused by rival of 'brutish' sales tactics to prevent customer defections

'Breach notices' issued to users by Oracle's compliance department intended to keep customers in line, claim Oracle's rivals

Oracle has been accused of adopting "brutish" sales tactics that "show disregard for customers" and of "putting profits above gaining customers' trust" following the introduction of a new sales culture.

That is the claim of middleware software vendor TmaxSoft and one of its services partners, Streamwire. They say that Oracle is starting to get tough on customers looking to migrate from Oracle databases and resorting to licensing and other tactics to strong-arm them into sticking with Oracle.

"Oracle is issuing 'breach notices', where their sales representatives inform customers that they are over-using their service and have 30 days to either negotiate or stop using Oracle software. This puts pressure on organisations who think that they can't move away because historically it has taken a long time to do so - this is now not the case - transition can be done in weeks," claimed James Mills, sales director at TmaxSoft.

He continued: "This is a completely unacceptable manoeuvre from Oracle, through which customers are forced to pay for more services they likely neither want nor need. Our experience with companies' databases has made us sensitive to the level of trust required between company and vendor - Oracle is completely disregarding this."

Streamwire CEO Anne Stokes added: "This tactic is a relatively new development from Oracle and could well be driven by some very poor showings in earnings. The disappointing performance in the cloud arena may well be driving the agenda. No organisation should ever consider putting sales above service. This will drive a wedge between themselves and their customers.

"The problem is, as Oracle has long dominated the enterprise software market, customers have had little room for manoeuvre on licensing. Clear licensing structures are really important for organisations as it prevents them from paying for redundant services - it's something that Oracle needs to change."

Mills added: "Whether it will, I don't know. Oracle's Licence Management Service (the department that helps with licence auditing) has a direct relationship with sales. CIOs normally end up over-licensing themselves to avoid an under-licensed situation in a software audit - something that can cost millions of pounds."

The two companies are particularly vexed over Oracle's alleged strong-arm sales tactics, aimed at retaining customers, because they offer and implement a rival product called TIBERO that, they claim, is "based on complete compatibility with Oracle".

Stokes cited recent research by IDC and Flexera Software that, she said, showed that 43 per cent of organisations "don't find Oracle's products to be reasonably priced".

She continued: "Oracle's customers just aren't getting the service that they want or deserve. They would do well to look for more transparent vendors, who eschew the sales rhetoric and complicated licensing models that Oracle is becoming known for."

Computing has contacted Oracle for comment, and will update the story accordingly.

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