Oracle's 'traumatic' licensing methodology works, so it won't change, says Specsavers global CIO

It took Specsavers nine months to renegotiate a licensing deal with Oracle, but it didn't have to, says Phil Pavitt

Oracle's approach to licensing has led to a 'traumatic' journey for Specsavers, according to its global CIO Phil Pavitt, who claims that the tech giant won't change the way it works.

A damning report by the not-for-profit organisation Campaign for Clear Licensing (CCL) at the end of 2014 suggested that Oracle's customers are left "hostile and filled with deep-rooted mistrust" as a result of the tech giant's licensing and auditing processes - and indeed, it is an area that CIOs have been telling Computing that they're frustrated about for years, not just with Oracle, but with the likes of IBM and SAP too.

According to Pavitt, Specsavers now has a good deal, but the firm had to go through six to nine months of "real trauma" to get to that deal.

"We're happy with that deal, it wasn't easy to get to but we are now licensed appropriately. But at the end of the day, the journey was overly dramatic and traumatic and didn't need to be," Pavitt told Computing.

"It is a real shame that their products are really good and unfortunately you can't do without them. But unfortunately the way they operate, it's just not a customer-focused way at all; their approach to the customer is minus the customer," he stated, adding that SAP and Oracle are both difficult to work with.

Last year at Oracle Openworld in San Francisco, the then CTO of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), Iain Patterson, suggested that the way Oracle licensing worked was about to change - as long as customers took a different approach to how they handle their licences.

But despite both the DVLA and Specsavers renegotiating deals with Oracle, Pavitt doesn't believe that Oracle will change.

"I don't believe that [Oracle will change]. At the end of the day they are a transaction-based organisation, they act like it, they sell like it, the gun-to-the-head methodology is selling. It's very powerful for them, there is no other methodology they've been trained in using and you have to get to very senior levels in the UK or the US to get any reasonable conversation about a reasonable deal - and that's not about discounting necessarily, it's about the right deal for the organisation," Pavitt said. This accords with Patterson's account that Oracle CEO Safra Catz was personally involved in the conversation to get DVLA a better deal.

Pavitt believes that the likes of Oracle and SAP should really be coming to their customers to help them, but said because of their size, customers have to approach them instead.

So what could force a change?

"It won't stop; it hasn't changed for 20 years so why would it change? If the customers jointly stand up then perhaps they'll do something, but it'll never happen," he said.