Coats plc CIO slams 'legacy vendors' SAP, IBM, Oracle for complex licensing
'These legacy vendors make life so darned confusing,' says Coats CIO Richard Cammish
The CIO of Coats plc, the world's largest manufacturer and distributor of sewing thread and supplies, has slammed "legacy vendors" such as SAP and IBM, for their complicated software licensing models.
In an interview with Computing, Richard Cammish said that he could understand why research from the Campaign for Clear Licensing (CCL) showed that Oracle's licensing had left its customers "hostile and filled with deep-rooted mistrust" - although Coats does not count Oracle as a key IT supplier, Cammish explained that the company could be categorised alongside SAP and IBM as a legacy vendor, too.
He continued: "This is an industry issue, where companies like SAP, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, who used to be there but are now getting better, may find it mildly insulting to be called legacy vendors. But to pick through their licensing model is incredibly complex.
"These companies have had products that have been running in organisations like mine for a few years and they have renamed products and upgraded products so that when you come to do a licence audit, you struggle to see [what is going on], and the first rule is to stay compliant.
"It's one of the contractual obligations, but it's very difficult to stay compliant if you cannot understand, with a degree of clarity, what products you have running," he said.
Cammish is not alone. CCL surveyed more than 100 Oracle customers worldwide and found that the majority of respondents (92 per cent) said that Oracle did not clearly communicate licensing changes. The not-for-profit organisation is aiming to carry out similar research on IBM, SAP and Microsoft as end users have complained about complicated licensing structures for years.
Cammish added that when he compares and contrasts the complexity of these well-established software vendors with companies like Zscaler, an internet security company, there are huge differences.
"Zscaler was easy to understand. You have absolute confidence that you have purchased what you needed to, you can track usage and it's just a much simpler model, and it makes them easier to do business with," he said.
"The Achilles' heel with these legacy vendors is that they make life so darned confusing - just trying to understand what their licensing and revenue model is, when we should be focused on implementation and delivering value," he added.