By Sheshagiri Anegondi
After the majorly successful campaign over the past 9-10 years of selling the Unlimited License Agreement (ULA), Oracle has now come up with another, seemingly very compelling, proposition called the PULA – the Perpetual ULA.
The PULA removes the time requirement but is priced differently on a yearly fee. The value proposition from Oracle is minimize risk of unpredictable yearly fees and software audits.
Prima-facie this looks extremely compelling but the risks are much bigger than in a ULA. Customers have rarely won in a ULA – unless they have really understood how to maximise value and constantly monitored the agreement and usage over the term of the ULA.
The author believes that customers will win even less with a PULA in place.
Always remember, in poker and the ULA, the house rarely loses!!!!
The author, Sheshagiri Anegondi, is India’s foremost expert on Oracle licensing outside of Oracle. Since starting his compliance products and consulting organisation a year ago, he has saved companies in India more than $40m in license and support fees. He can be contacted at sheshu@rythium.com or sheshu@itamindia.com
Do you want to know the steps for ULA Certification ? Read here
Apart from ULAs, Java is another very complex license management bugbear from Oracle. Go here if you want to learn about our Java License Analyzer and Java License Review services.
You might want to read more about our CEO Sheshagiri Anegondi (Sheshu). He is amongst the foremost Oracle License Experts globally.
Sheshagiri Anegondi
Managing Partner of Rythium Technologies. Seventeen years at Oracle, from 1998 to 2015, in leadership roles including Vice President Sales, after Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation.
Author of “Licensing Oracle: The Reference Manual for Managing Oracle License Compliance & Procuring Oracle Software, Hardware, Cloud & Services” (Notion Press, 2021) (ISBN 10: 1639046887).