With the continued increase in Server performance, the number of CPU licences you need to support a user community is dropping.

Where this really hurts is for entry level users, and SMOs who don't have the negotiating clout.

Unless M$ follow suit, which I doubt, I think we will see increased sales of SQL Server and MS Dynamics rather than Oracle and Applications.

It does seem strange though, hasn't Oracle increased its $ revenue from it's weakness against other currencies.

Also much of their revenue is from support to existing customers, which they can't hike to that extent as it's governed by a pre-determined formula.

A simple piece of advice to Oracle customers, to keep costs down, mix your licence types according to what you need, it can save you 25-50% overall, and if you are replacing one Oracle system with another, see if you can transfer the licences, something government doesn't do very often.

I bet the rivals are rubbing their hands with glee at this announcement...

On the other hand. At this price level, do people really care about the cost?

Oracle clearly don't have any aspirations to take market share away from SQL Server at the low-end.

Everywhere I've worked has been SQL Server, and whenever I've been a bit down about it looked at Oracle only to find the pricing pretty-much identical. Why?

Compare Oracle Express with SQL Server Express aswell, what do Oracle offer more to encourage people to move?

Oracle has a big problem - it can't increase its income by expansion. Everybody who wants database or middleware software already has it. And most of the potential customers are already using Oracle software.

So, over the last few years, they have started eyeing up other people's revenue streams. Want to run a big database on a big Sun box? Why not run Oracle RAC on RedHat commodity boxes, giving us more licensing money instead of buying hardware. That expansion has now run its course - the remaining big single instances need to be single instances.

They are now pushing into RedHat's revenue stream. Having moved people onto RedHat on commodity hardware, they are now jealous of RedHat's revenue, so are pushing people into Oracle Enterprise Linux (sic). The plan is simple, by stopping customers giving money to RedHat, there is more space left in the budget for Oracle software.

But their revenue growth still depends on increasing the amount of money they get. Expect to see illustrations where the "before" case has money going to Sun/RedHat and the after shows the "value" of getting Oracle further into the technology stack, so despite having increased list prices the customers appear to be shelling out less. At the same time, the virtualisation players are proclaiming how they can "help improve licensing efficiency" (i.e. mean that customers run Oracle software on less boxes, so give Oracle less money). But, like the spoilt child taking his ball back, Oracle just drag their heels over the supported status of their software in these virtualised environments, essentially spreading "FUD by omission".

Finally, like Sun, they've bungled their attempt to get a significant general services business (what services business they both have is attached to their own products, unlike IBM or HP).

These price increases show two things: (1) The enterprise software market has now stabilised around a certain set of products, so Oracle don't have to defend their market share with aggressive pricing, and (2) Oracle has run out of ideas. They are heading in 180 degrees the opposite direction to Sun, who are treating software as an enabling component which should be free (libre) with revenue coming from providing valuable solutions. Oracle, meanwhile, are unsurprisingly treating software as goods in their own right.

Interesting times.

[AC, as my employers work with all the companies mentioned above]

The fact that they're killing off Weblogic Express just at a time when most people in the Java community have stopped developing code that relies on full-stack JEE (in favour of Spring/Hibernate and the like).

Anyone wanting to deploy on Weblogic are now faced with paying lots of cash for a product stuffed with features and bloat they won't use. Which I guess is entirely consistent with Oracle's other products, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised...

License Suit Larry has just made himself a sure thing for a massive EU fine.

Almost eight years old, but as valid as ever:

http://blogs.sun.com/bmc/date/20040828

Buy the competitors, raise the support costs and let the product die. After a certain amount of time the acquired product has reached down to the crap level of the inhouse one ... push the inhouse one down customers' throats at a bargain to replace the xeno-prod. ... then raise the licensing costs of the inhouse.

Start a surveillance, and as soon as a potential competitors shows up, buy it and destroy it before the price tag is too high.

Oracle is doing us a favour by raising fees when money is scarce.

Not surprised with this - The previous company I worked for employed a nice wheeze to save money on Weblogic by using Express for production and parking Apache in front of it so you never breached the ip address limits.

Looks like they'll have to shell out for the full product now.

Nice one Larry.

According to the information I have from employee's at Oracle, The AquaLogic(ALUI) product stack with the exception of ALBPM (formerly Fuego) is wrapped up under the Enterprise Content Management license cost. This includes ALUI Portal, Collaboration, Publisher, Studio, Analytics and the Social Computing Suite (Pages, Ensemble, Pathways)