Oracle enacts 'all or
nothing' hardware support policy,
Oracle has adopted what amounts to an "all or
nothing" hardware support policy, according to a PDF document the vendor
has posted on its Web site.
The policy, which went into effect March 16, states
that "when acquiring technical support, all hardware systems must be supported
(e.g., Oracle Premier Support for Systems or Oracle Premier Support for
Operating Systems) or unsupported."
It includes all systems running Solaris version 10.9 or
later, those running Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM, as well as "all
hardware systems for which you have applied services received under a technical
support contract for another hardware system (including sharing of updates,
patches, fixes, security alerts, work-arounds, configuration/installation
assistance or parts)."
Customers who don't purchase support for hardware
systems aren't allowed to obtain "maintenance releases, patches, telephone
assistance, or any other technical support services."
Machines that have reached the end of their useful
life, or which are registered as "retired," are not affected by the
policy.
The policy also lists costs that will incur in the
event a customer's hardware support contract lapses for longer than 90 days, or
if one was never originally purchased.
These systems must be determined "service
ready" by Oracle, which requires customers to "acquire the Premier
Support Qualification Service (at the then current fees) and meet all
requirements set forth by the service team to obtain a qualification
certificate for your hardware system."
A reinstatement charge also applies. The fee amounts to
"150 percent of the last-paid support fee, or 150 percent of the list
technical support price for the covered hardware system, prorated from the date
technical support is being ordered back to the date technical support lapsed
(or the hardware order date if technical support was never purchased)."
Customers also must buy the "Premier Support
Qualification Service" when they want to move up from operating system
support to Premier Support for Systems.
Citing time constraints due to Oracle's quarterly
earnings report, which will be released Thursday, an Oracle spokeswoman said
she could not immediately provide comment on the new policy. Pricing
information for the support tiers was also not available Thursday.
Since Oracle moved to acquire Sun Microsystems,
observers have speculated about how it will derive more revenue from the
hardware business it gained, as hardware has lower profit margins than Oracle
is used to making on software licenses and maintenance fees.
The hardware support policy is "an indication to
us that Oracle is starting to inject its discipline in the Sun business,"
JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens said in a research note.
"Our view is that Oracle is likely to take a
harder line in terms of enforcing its support policies than Sun did,
particularly in the small to medium-sized business market," Walravens
wrote. "Our checks suggest that some of these customers sometimes used
patches from supported machines on unsupported machines."
SMBs might look to alternatives as a result, but Oracle's move may prove effective with bigger customers, Walravens added.
"To avoid the hassle of registering each machine, larger accounts may
increasingly move to site license arrangement. In the end, our checks suggest
Oracle is focused on the higher-end customers who want support and are willing
to pay for it on every machine."
Oracle is pushing a vision of soup-to-nuts systems
spanning storage and servers to applications, saying the tight integration of
all those components will pay big dividends for customers.
"The question is, can Oracle deliver such amazing
performance by owning the [entire] stack that the big customers will want to
stay with them?" Walravens said in an interview.
But enterprises are also looking for "a single
point of accountability," instead of the finger-pointing that can occur
over problems when multiple vendors are involved in a system, Walravens said.
By Chris Kanaracus
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