Brussels settled with SAP. It is now asking about Oracle.
The European Commission is reportedly gathering information from third parties about Oracle's enterprise software licensing practices, and assessing whether the evidence warrants a formal investigation.
Nothing formal has been opened.
The Commission's own words are the part to note. It "will continue to monitor possible further anticompetitive practices and abusive conduct in the enterprise software sector".
The products reported to be in scope are the ones with the most complicated meters. Oracle Database, with its processor, virtualisation and cloud licensing rules. Java, charged on total employee count. Then the on-premise portfolio: E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Siebel, Hyperion.
Pareekh Jain of Pareekh Consulting: "Oracle Database is probably the biggest area."
Manoj Chandra Jha of Nord-IQ Research sets the horizon: "This is likely to be a multi-year outcome, not a Q4 planning assumption."
The SAP precedent is what makes this concrete. SAP gave binding commitments restricting practices that had stopped customers switching support providers or terminating contracts.
Which line in your Oracle contract would you renegotiate first?
Sources
Our file on SAP
- 20 Sept
SAP's chief executive said voice replaces much data entry in three years.
- 19 Sept
KPMG cut jobs in its SAP and AI teams. Partners averaged £880,000.
- 17 Sept
Broadcom raised VMware prices by 10x or more, European cloud providers say.
- 17 Sept
Grocery Outlet's SAP launch cut gross margin by almost 2 points.
- 11 Sept
Zeiss dropped the clean rebuild of its SAP after about €200 million.
Every story here is open to read. The ERP LEADERS brief goes one step further.
One ERP programme per issue, laid out for a steering committee. Issue 01 is the Zeiss case. Read issue 01 or sign up for the brief.
Welcome back. · Issue 01