Re: Oracle licence question

On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 20:23:34 +0000, joebayer wrote:

> Group,
>
> Oracle is so expensive, often time, managers chose SQL server over Oracle
> only because of the expense, and it is sad to see all those new projects go
> to SQL server group. (Our shop do not do any in house software development,
> only vendor application, and all vendor applications support both Oracle and
> SQL)
>

Oracle is only expensive when an organization does not know what it is buying.

IN general, Oracle Standard Edition will compete price- and feature- wise with SQL Server Enterprise Edition. There are exceptions, but often management (and the technical 'experts' who advise them - usually Microsoft bigots) do their 'fair evaluation' on the name of the product rather than the capabilities.

Custom apps that use Oracle built to maintain 'vendor independence' are often built totally wrong. They are built to ignore the features in the database. As a result, the application often duplicates what comes at no added cost in the database - and that duplication has cost, and will continue to cost, in development and maintenance. SO you pay for the feature in Oracle, and then pay for someone to develop the feature.

Aside from that, many managers have absolutely no clue that an application exit strategy is required, and that the exit strategy costs need to be included in the application cost.

The cost of a perpetual license with unlimited free upgrades, unlimited free patches, and unlimited support calls (no matter how stoopid) also needs to be evaluated against a cheep initial license with every upgrade and every support call costing an arm and a leg. Again, rarely evaluated unless management has a clue.

> I have one question here:
>
> Is it possible for us only to buy Oracle licence without paying for the
> annual support? All I need is accessing metalink website, and my other
> projects have already provided such access.
>

Yes it is possible to purchase without support. However, if you download patches using one metalink access and apply those patches to systems without support, you are probably in violation of several agreements.

> Thanks for your comments or suggestions as how to make Oracle competitive in
> terms of price, what kind of option do I have here?

Some options include using term licenses. After all, if management is not willing to do some serious cost analysis, chances are great that the application will be tossed in 2-3 years. So why license for lonmger than that period.

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com   
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