Oracle 'dirty tricks' to continue in 2019, claims Support Revolution

Mark Smith, CEO of Support Revolution, claims SAP is likely to audit its customers more, whilst Oracle will continue its 'dirty tricks'

Oracle is set to try to "confuse" its customers into taking up contracts they don't want with the firm, according to Mark Smith, CEO of Support Revolution.

He claimed that Oracle is using its policy of matching service levels on different contracts as an excuse to lock customers in.

"We expect Oracle will continue and expand its current practice of trying to confuse its customer's into staying in contract with them," said Smith.

"In 2018, we have been told by many customers that Oracle sales reps have said that they cannot terminate support on one contract if they want to continue to use any Oracle software at all, citing their 'matching service levels' policy.

"This policy in fact states that if you use two products from the same family on one system, you have to license them on the same basis, i.e. per processor.

"We expect Oracle reps to continue to try to bamboozle their customers using these underhand techniques. However, we also expect to see more customers fighting back and insisting that the Oracle rep confirms their assertions in writing, (which of course they never do because it is not true)," he argued.

Smith added that there is likely to be a backlash against the firm's new policy of auto-renewing support contracts.

"This year, Oracle changed its policies so that support contracts now auto-renew rather than simply end once the contract is over, unless they give 32 days' notice.

"Unsurprisingly, Oracle did not make a great deal of noise about this change in contracts and in 2019 businesses may find that they have signed up to contracts they simply didn't want. Oracle has said that this is to ensure businesses don't go without support during the renewal process—we're not sure many would agree!"

He also reserved criticism for SAP, referring to the firm's attempt to get its customers to move to its cloud platform by 2025.

"Six years to go, and SAP's 2025 deadline still doesn't seem to be convincing businesses to move to the cloud. The ticking clock means that in 2019 many more businesses will start to make decisions on what to do about their legacy software—and many of them will decide to stick with what they have.

"Securing and supporting what a business knows to work is likely to beat rushing to the cloud to meet a deadline. The 2025 deadline is having an effect, but not necessarily the one SAP wants."

Smith added that SAP is likely to audit its customers software licenses more aggressively in 2019.

"Oracle has the reputation for being the licensing bad guy compared to its rival SAP, but this may change in 2019.

"Following a change to its licensing model, the company has created a new audit team. It's unlikely SAP would build this team for them to do nothing—we expect that a more aggressive auditing regime is on the way, especially given the multimillion-dollar fines that led to court cases against Diageo and Anheuser-Busch."

Earlier this year, John Abel, vice president, cloud and technology, UK & Ireland at Oracle told the audience at Computing's Cloud and Infrastructure conference that businesses should focus on simplicity.