RE: oracle EE pricing

  • From: "Goulet, Richard" <Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Thomas Roach" <troach@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:51:35 -0500

Well, the "cash cow" sooner or later becomes the commodity market where
the price is controlled by the consumer.  Had that happen to my old
company.  While power modules where premium items we could charge what
we wanted, but then the market got saturated with suppliers and it
became a commodity.  Prices crashed.  I keep hoping to see it here as
well.
 

Dick Goulet 
Senior Oracle DBA/NA Team Lead 
PAREXEL International 

 

________________________________

From: Thomas Roach [mailto:troach@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 9:42 AM
To: Goulet, Richard
Cc: william.muriithi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; pythianbrinsmead@xxxxxxxxx;
WLJohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; vlajos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
Oracle-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: oracle EE pricing


I've seen several projects where the IT team/proj manager/IT manager
wanted to go with Oracle for new projects but the finance team shot the
deal down because of the price difference between say Oracle and SQL
Server or DB2, now that SQL Server and DB2 have added many of the
features that used to make Oracle standout. There are still many things
Oracle does really really well, but when finance gets involved, they
make it really hard to justify, so you get "You can buy SQL or DB2 or
you delay the project" and some managers are just not willing to do
that.
 
Where I am at now, they have us looking at Postgres because as they look
to quadruple in size in the next 2 years, the Oracle costs will kill
them, but our sales rep says there is nothing he can do to help us bring
the cost down. I love PostrGres but it doesn't exactly match their RAC
systems, and it's not instrumented the way Oracle is, plus the
patching/support. Oracle knows they have ya and are probably willing to
lose a few customers to gain the extra revenue from the rest.
 
I do have one big complaint, that Oracle wants to charge for Diag and
Tuning packs to look at AWR data, but all the options. Also, you buy EE,
but then you need to pay extra for RAC, Partitioning, Active Data Guard,
Advanced Security Option, Advanced Compression, Real Application Testing
etc... not to mention all the Grid Control packs. I wish Enterprise
Edition included all these things, but realize it is a way to maximize
revenue. It's almost as bad as Microsoft is with licensing Windows (how
many different versions of Windows do they have?)... seems like both
companies want to milk the cash cow.


On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 8:24 AM, Goulet, Richard
<Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


               Many years ago I interviewed with a major financial.
They
        operated in a similar way, though not exactly identical. In
their minds
        a computer was obsolete after 5 years, whether a desktop,
laptop, or
        server.  They also believed in never opening their machines
after
        purchase, so all computers came porked, max memory, cpu's, fiber
cards,
        etc.....  Disk systems were the same, buy EMC and fill it as
we'll use
        it sooner or later.  They followed the same idea with Oracle.
If the
        machine was going to be a database server, buy a license for it,
with
        all options and then just leave it.  No patches or support after
the
        first year.  When the server came to the end of it's life they
replaced
        it along with the Oracle license if still needed.  They claimed
it was
        cheaper in the long run, but I wonder.  I'm no financial wizard,
by any
        stretch of the imagination, so it doesn't make sense to me.
        
               What I don't understand, soapbox please, is why Oracle
places
        the cost of it's software as high as it does, after all it's
software,
        not platinum.  There is no limit to the number of copies that
you can
        sell and at it's current price there is sufficient sticker shock
that
        sometimes the nod goes else where.  I know that a project I'm
involved
        with is reconsidering their DB choice just because Oracle is so
darn
        expensive.  The PM wanted EE with  a 2 node Rac and Active Data
Guard.
        Will probably end up as SE, no RAC and a basic DR setup
(recovery from
        tape).  The other side of this is that I've friends who have
lost their
        jobs, not because they were downsized, but replaced with DB2 or
        Sql*Server DBA's and that just on the impression that those
would be
        cheaper.  That is down right depressing.  OK, we can put the
soapbox
        away now.
        
        
        Dick Goulet
        Senior Oracle DBA/NA Team Lead
        PAREXEL International
        

        -----Original Message-----
        From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        
        [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of William
Muriithi
        Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 10:20 AM
        To: pythianbrinsmead@xxxxxxxxx; WLJohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Cc: vlajos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Oracle-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Subject: RE: oracle EE pricing
        
        
        
        I have clients who have operated for years without a support
agreement
        (and without patching).  But I would not voluntarily choose this
myself,
        though.
        
        I am curious, would this still be acceptable to Oracle?  I have
always
        assumed that you are only allowed to play with it, for testing
and
        learning. The moment you attach a business around it, you have
to part
        with money, even if you do not need patching and support.
        
        Please do not infer that I am putting you in a tight corner. I
have
        thought twice before sending this, but concluded you would be
okay since
        you are the one who brought it up in the first place.
        
        
        
        
        
        Bill
        
        -----Original Message-----
        From:
        
oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
        
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxx
        rg>] On Behalf Of Veres Lajos
        Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 5:41 AM
        To: Oracle-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Oracle-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
        Subject: oracle EE pricing
        
        Hi,
        
        I dont understand something about pricing.
        This page says:
        
https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/f?p=ostore:product:86489432026629::NO
        
:RP,3:P3_LPI,P3_PROD_HIER_ID:4509382199341805719938,45099582877218057200
<https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/f?p=ostore:product:86489432026629::N
O:RP,3:P3_LPI,P3_PROD_HIER_ID:4509382199341805719938,4509958287721805720
0> 
        11
        
        Perpetual license/cpu: 47,500$, plus yearly support: 10,450$
        1 year license/cpu: 9,500$
        
        It looks like to me it is cheaper to re-buy a yearly license in
every
        year, than the yearly support cost of a perpetual license. (And
there is
        lot more difference in the first year...)
        
        I guess I am missing something, but I cant find it.
        
        Can you enlighten me?
        
        Thanks in advance.
        --
        Veres Lajos
        vlajos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:vlajos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
        +36 20 438 5909
        --
        //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
        
        
        --
        //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
        
        
        
        
        
        --
        Cheers,
        -- Mark Brinsmead
         Senior DBA,
         The Pythian Group
         http://www.pythian.com/blogs
        --
        //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
        
        
        --
        //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
        
        
        




-- 
Thomas Roach
813-404-6066
troach@xxxxxxxxx

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