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RE: Oracle Licensing

From: Tom Schruefer <tschruefer_at_mail.howard.k12.md.us>
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 11:57:24 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.002C5005.20010306114134@fatcity.com>

Looking for a job in Oracle sales? This is a pretty convincing argument.   Thanks for the additional info.

>Jeffery Stevenson - jeff_at_mpv.com on 3/6/2001 10:10 AM writes us:

>Well, if you don't want product updates/upgrades for Oracle then you can
>knock about $15K off of that $45K for Oracle (and with SQL Server it looks
>like you can only upgrade the user licenses and not the processor
>licensing--looks like to upgrade you'd have to buy the new version anyways).
>Now for SQL Server support, there is a good pricing "menu" here for MS
>support for SQL Server:
>

This seems to be the kicker. Its nice to be able to plan ahead to avoid future pitfalls, unfortunately most purchasing decisions don't seem to be made that way. A lot of times purchasing decisions are made based on the budget available today and not how much it will cost the company 2 years from now. M$ is famous for forcing users of its products, particularly business users to upgrade-or-else, if they want continued support.

If Oracle could somehow account for this, like once a company purchases its database, they are likely to stay and upgrade. Its the reason so much desktop software is cheap, the companies actually make most of their money on upgrades.

[snip some very convincing arguments]

>
>Now look at this scenario:
>
>I have a box with four 500 Mhz CPUs.
>
>Oracle with support and updates (the 2 year licensing scenario): $85,500
>Microsoft without support and without updates: $79,996
>

Price wise (only), you would only pay half that if you got a box with 2 1000mhz
CPU's. Thats a 2 CPU license at $39,998. If thats correct, it a hole MS is sure to plug.

>After all, the MS processor licensing is $19999 per CPU. Now let's throw in
>a hypothetical that one year after buying your MS SQL Server, a new version
>comes out that just blows the previous version away--it fixes all the
>problems that your specific site has been having, it's faster, it's more
>scalable, it's more reliable and it will even start brewing coffee for you
>when it logs a database problem late at night. Now to upgrade to this new
>version (unless MS provides an upgrade option for the processor licensing in
>the future), it would cost you another $79,996 (and the same scenario with
>Oracle would only cost you the price to have them ship you the media...if
>you want it on disk that is). Anyways, just some things to think about with
>all of this. :)
>
>***Now, we all seem to agree that the current licensing scenario for Oracle
>is a bit prohibitive...maybe we should collaborate and think of a pricing
>scenario that is fair, yet still competitive for them, and maybe if we get
>enough people to suggest it to them (and mention that they'd probably get a
>higher volume of sales with these pricing options)...

Perhaps dropping their price and charging a bit more for upgrades, which for Oracle seem to come out frequently enough. First upgrade is free, etc., etc..

Oracle may also consider developing a much more user friendly (consumer) version of is Oracle Personal DB.

Tom

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Author: Tom Schruefer
  INET: tschruefer_at_mail.howard.k12.md.us

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Received on Tue Mar 06 2001 - 13:57:24 CST

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