What are reduced minimums? When Oracle licenses certain software by various metrics (other than their preferred metric of Processor), Oracle is responding to customer demand for an improved metric designed to provide some economic relief, generally for non-production use. Most commonly, Oracle agrees to allow its customers to license certain environments (like test or development environments) by named user, instead of by processor. In so doing, however, Oracle generally requires user minimums (a minimum number of users that have to be licensed in order to receive that benefit), so as not to give too big of a financial concession to the end ...
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In our previous posts, we have reviewed the need for: Price Holds Maintenance Freeze And in this post, we will discuss the need for caps on the Annual increases for Maintenance and Support Services. Support Caps What is a Support Cap? A support cap seeks to place limits on the compounded effect of annual increases to the costs of the annual maintenance and support services fees beyond the Maintenance Freeze term. Why is it Important? If there is no language to govern the amount of increase after the Maintenance Freeze (#11 in our list) term, the costs of annual maintenance and support services can skyrocket and quickly get out of control. ...
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NET(net) advises all clients to strive to “lock down” every escalating cost of Oracle’s annual maintenance and support services by negotiating a maintenance freeze for as long as possible. What is a maintenance freeze? It’s a provision in the contract to ensure that Oracle doesn’t increase the annual maintenance service and support costs year over year; and on a compounding basis. Why is it needed? Across our experiences, Oracle often charges a 9% annual increase, which compounds year-over-year, and fundamentally Diminishes the Inclusive Value of the annual maintenance & support services Equation: the DIVE phenomenon). A cost increase of ...
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The votes are counted, and Oracle yet again wins for being perhaps the most tyrannical of all technology suppliers. The standard Oracle Terms and Conditions are legendary for being one-sided. What’s worse, Oracle has gained an equally reviled reputation for leveraging those terms and conditions to their full and unilateral benefit at the great expense of their customers. If you are renewing your annual maintenance with Oracle, buying new Oracle software, engaged in or concerned about an Oracle audit, considering Cloud solutions or having them forced upon you, or just thinking about how to mitigate cost and risk and improve the realization of ...
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Most clients today use a complicated procedure for processing supplier payments to ensure the process is not only accurate and complete, but also: comports with the terms of the commercial agreement performs in compliance with the conditions of the contractual agreement is done with authenticated trading partners isn’t fraudulent or illicit in any way is fully auditable An Example of This Authentication Process: A Purchase Requisition is made, signifying the internal demand for the seller’s products and services. The terms of a Commercial Arrangement are agreed to, including product, service, and pricing information. A Contractual Agreement ...
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Software audits have become an unfortunate but necessary revenue stream for most suppliers today. And who can really blame them? It usually works! Just as governments have now come to rely on revenue from things like speeding and parking tickets, so to have software companies come to rely on software audits to move the needle on revenue or generate fear, using pressure and leverage to create opportunities for new licensing revenue. The reasons are well known, and really haven’t changed significantly in the last few years: Competition from disruptive suppliers Migration away from perpetual licensing to subscription-based cloud solutions ...
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We are still waiting for the great IBM turnaround led by Ginny Rometty since her installment as CEO in 2012. IBM has pinned its turnaround on Watson AI, Blockchain and now “Hybrid Cloud” with the RedHat acquisition. IBM’s “turnaround” has resulted in 22 out of 25 quarters of declining earnings. To be fair, it’s the last three quarters that have shown growth, not driven by its strategic imperatives but rather has been provided by (drum roll please) – mainframe. Yes, the good old mainframe, with upgrades and increased storage needs driving strong revenue in Q2 and Q3. How the mighty have fallen, or better said, continue to fall as we have been ...
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What is the Thrive Ultimatum? 2019 will present the 'C-Suite' with a Digital Transformation ultimatum. Digital initiatives can no longer be ‘shelved’ or viewed as a future innovation that are delayed by a myriad of excuses. Organizations operating this way are often in survival mode, feeling encumbered by forces outside their control. But survival is no longer enough as consumers, businesses, and shareholders demand that organizations move past survival mode, to thrive mode and cross the chasm of digital change and disruption now. Organizations that recognize this imperative and act on it are succeeding in the digital age. Those that decide ...
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‘The Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ is a popular holiday song and was written by Edward Pola and George Wyle in 1963. It was popularized in North America by singer Andy Williams that same year on his television show by the same name. However, we didn’t have to do much research to learn that the inspiration for that song had nothing to do with the 4th quarter for most business leaders and their respective companies. Anecdotally, we believe most business leaders might say it’s the most *stressful* time of the year, especially for publicly traded companies – most of whom have their fiscal year end aligned with the calendar year end of ...
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Over the past 16 years, we’ve seen almost every way possible for an organization to lose value in their technology supplier arrangements, agreements, and relationships. Sometimes these situations arise from external forces that leave little in the way of options like mergers, acquisitions, or litigation. Many times, however, we find that organizations could have improved if only they had a few key insights. If a company is willing to take the necessary steps to acknowledge where they have shortcomings in information, expertise, and experience, they could avoid many of these pitfalls. It’s difficult to know what you don’t know, and as a ...
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