Over the weekend I was sitting back and looking up at the sky and I saw a few clouds in the distance. They were thunder clouds and coming my way and I was at the end of a long pier. I thought I’d better get back before the rain got to where I was just as the thunder started. While walking quickly back down the pier I noticed that all of the people with long hair – it was standing straight up! It was cool and scary at the same time…
As I walked, I did notice one young woman that was trying to get some pictures of herself and she was running her hands through her hair trying desperately to get it to stay down but the elements were not backing down. As they forced her hair upward, I thought, this is exactly what Oracle is going to start doing to clients running VMware… force them toward their cloud!
It hasn’t been a secret that Oracle loves to audit clients running VMware and try desperately to force them into paying more for the findings. This has been an ongoing battle for some time now and it gets harder and harder as it goes. The last audit defense I managed involved having the sales department calling the client and telling them they had to hire an Oracle partner to validate their environment in order to close the audit. Now with Oracle’s announcement that they have partnered with VMware to help clients move their VMware installs to the Oracle cloud, it had my hair standing on end just like those people on the pier. Rather than coming in with a big financial finding during an audit and pushing for a big payment or Unlimited License Agreement, Oracle can now tell the client to just move to the Oracle cloud. I can see it now, “you are $50M out of compliance but if you transition to the VMware in Oracle cloud, you will be compliant for a fraction of that cost”.
Oracle needs more clients moving to the cloud and has been pushing that for several years. With the change in licensing for Java to subscription-based, and that can only be purchased from Oracle directly, we are seeing signs of ominous changes ahead. Getting clients (and everyone who uses Java is now an Oracle client) to buy into a cloud subscription model is now the game! What is next? Is it forcing clients to use Oracle cloud or face the high financial risk? Be aware – this is one tactic that you should prepare for in your next negotiation. Know your entitlements and your contracts! Don’t go into an audit alone. and if you are using VMware, make sure you know ALL of the latest hidden rules and tactics that will be used against you.
