Oracle's New Pricing and Licensing Plan

Yesterday, Oracle announced that it has updated its multi-core processor pricing and licensing policy. It now more closely resembles those of the company's competitors. Jacqueline Woods, Oracle's vice president of global pricing and licensing strategy said, "The goal of Oracle's pricing and licensing strategy is to provide simple and flexible licensing models to meet our customers' needs."

For example, a 4-way, dual core processor server which previously had a list license fee of $320,000 (4*2 [cores] *$40,000) would now have a list license fee of $240,000 (0.75 * 8 [cores] *$40,000). Oracle Standard Edition One or Standard Edition programs for use on a single processor server containing a maximum of 2 cores shall be priced as a single processor. "Licensing our database software by processor is one of several choices we provide to our customers. Other options include licensing per user and per employee. Oracle also offers the option of licensing its software on a term or perpetual basis (1-year, 2-year, 3-year, 4-year and 5-year)," said Woods. Oracle's new plan has been criticized for being inconvenient, with people having to keep track of fractions, but what the heck? A little math never hurt anyone. Chris is a staff writer for latest ebusiness news.