Debate ignites over "deep-rooted mistrust" in Oracle licensing

A business software buyer lobby group has sent an open letter to Oracle demanding it "improve trust and communication with customers if it wishes to shift its business to cloud computing services" – though some partners and customers have said the correspondence is an over-reaction.

UK-based organisation Campaign for Clear Licensing also warned Oracle that it would "struggle to hit [the] US$1 billion cloud sales target in the next financial year if it does not address customer concerns over licensing and auditing practices".

The call follows a November report compiled by the user-side group from an analysis of more than 100 Oracle customers internationally. Campaign for Clear Licensing said in the letter that the most significant findings out of that investigation were:

• Oracle's audit requests are often unclear and difficult to respond to
• Oracle's own licence management service is largely unhelpful to customers during an audit
• Oracle's licensing changes are often poorly communicated (to the extent that in some instances Oracle's own sales teams and LMS are often found to be working with out-of-date licensing information)
• Oracle routinely moves the licensing goals posts to favour revenue streams over customer requirements

"Together these issues have resulted in customer relationships that are predominantly hostile and filled with deep-rooted mistrust, particularly when it comes to licensing and audits," said the letter, addressed to co-founder and chief executive Larry Ellison and the Oracle board.

"We strongly believe that failing to address these concerns will hamper Oracle’s ability to persuade its customers to adopt its cloud computing services, as most are concerned that cloud computing services will lock them into Oracle even more than they already are."

One Australian Oracle partner who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the situation is nowhere near as bad in Australia.

"Oracle's Australian staff are attentive with liaising with customers to meet their licensing needs. They prefer using the carrot over the stick when it comes to these things," said the partner. "Maybe it's because Australia's a smaller market and they have less resources, but it's a lot less harsh here than maybe in the UK."

CRN contacted members of the Australian Oracle user group AUSOUG for comment but had not received any responses by the time of writing.

John Matelski, president of US-based Independent Oracle Users Group, also disagreed with the CCL letter in a blog post.

"As an Oracle customer and a member of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), I was extremely surprised and dismayed to learn that there are still those in the customer community that would suggest that their relationship with Oracle is predominantly hostile and filled with deep-rooted mistrust, particularly when it comes to licensing and audits," wrote Metelski.

CRN could not find an official response to the open letter on the vendor's website and Oracle Australia had not yet responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.

Campaign for Clear Licensing now has IBM and SAP in its sights, with an invitation to the next roundtable this week asking for feedback about those vendors.

Campaign for Clear Licensing is based in Swindon, UK, and describes itself as "an independent, not-for-profit organisation campaigning for clear licensing, manageable licence programs and the rights of business software buyers".

Oracle is a giant technology multinational best known for pioneering and dominating the relational databases market, complemented in recent decades with growth in the ERP and hardware fields. The company has 400,000 customers supported by more than 120,000 staff worldwide.