Are local authorities being targeted in Oracle software-licence audits?
Croydon, Greenwich, Havering, and Hillingdon spent more than £500,000 on Oracle over the past two years
Oracle's notoriously aggressive software licence auditing teams are turning their attention to local authorities, with one-in-six London boroughs being targeted by the software giant.
That is the claim of Oracle rival TmaxSoft, which dug out the information using a series of Freedom of Information requests.
Ninety-two per cent of London's councils use Oracle relational database software somewhere within their organisations, claimed TmaxSoft, with one-third of London councils spending more than £100,000 over the past two years on licensing fees alone, while 15 per cent spent more than £500,000 on Oracle software licences.
Croydon, Greenwich, Havering, and Hillingdon already spend more than £500,000 on Oracle software, while Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Camden, Ealing, Lambeth, and Lewisham all admitted to spending between £100,001 and £500,000 on Oracle software.
Furthermore, four of the 25 councils that responded admitted that they have been subjected to a software licensing audit by Oracle in the past year alone.
On top of that, while 40 per cent were not able to answer questions over rising costs, one-third admitted that their spending on Oracle software had risen by up to 20 per cent, while just under four per cent reported a doubling of spending on Oracle - at a time when local authority budgets are being tightly squeezed. Just under four per cent also indicated that they had slashed their spending on Oracle software by more than 60 per cent.
"Oracle has a history of aggressive sales tactics among private sector customers, and if these findings could be applied nationwide, then 64 councils across Britain would be subject to an audit by Oracle, potentially leading to significantly higher licensing costs without a great deal of additional value provided to the councils," said Carl Davies, managing director of TmaxSoft UK.
Shifting from Oracle, Davies added, would enable many local authorities to save millions of pounds over the next decade. "A move away from Oracle will enable local councils to better control and manage their database licensing costs, cutting unnecessary expenditure and directly benefiting their taxpaying constituents."
Oracle software is used by some 92 per cent of London local authorities, with only Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea not using Oracle in any capacity. Barnet, meanwhile, is in the process of decommissioning its Oracle database estate.
The aggressive nature of software vendors' licensing audits have long been recognised - customers rarely enjoy refunds as a result. Many users feel that software vendors have become more aggressive in their licence audits, an issue compounded by the complicated nature of many software licence agreements, and the way in which they can be changed between releases and upgrades.
A report from not-for-profit organisation Campaign for Clear Licensing (CCL) suggested that Oracle licensing left its customers 'hostile and filled with deep-rooted mistrust'.
TmaxSoft, meanwhile, has long chronicled the aggressive nature of Oracle's sales and software licence auditing teams - all the better to sell its own alternative to Oracle.
In August, for example, it claimed: "Oracle is apparently issuing 'breach notices', where their sales representatives inform customers that they are over-using their service and have 30 days to either negotiate or stop using Oracle software. This puts pressure on organisations who think that they can't move away because historically it has taken a long time to do so - this is now not the case - transition can be done in weeks.
"This tactic is a relatively new development from Oracle and could well be driven by some very poor showings in earnings."