December 22, 2020

December 22, 2020 | Martin Biggs | Vice President and General Manager of EMEA

There is a lot of uncertainty in the world as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt business in one way or another. Here in Europe (especially the UK), there is the added complexity of Brexit with the uncertainty of decisions being made by 31st December. I had a nagging feeling, based on my conversations, that local Oracle customers are not prioritising any “big” shifts in terms of their ERP or Databases because of this. 
 
 When I was asked to comment on an article of this very topic, I was somewhat pleased to confirm that my hunch was correct. A UK Oracle User Group representative confirms that strategic software platform decisions are being put on the back burner until there is more certainty in the markets and clarity on what staff will remain to drive any transformation. 

There are some things that Oracle customers can control, though, and that is how much they are paying annually to Oracle for the support of their systems. As Oracle is providing little commercial leniency, whilst increasing support costs and pressurizing the move to the cloud, Oracle customers are looking to third-party alternatives for support.   

Spinnaker Support provides an ideal opportunity for clients to stay fully supported, on their legacy tech, for a fraction of the price, for as long as they want. As the real costs of Cloud become more clear, my guess is the appetite to rush into migration is going to be delayed beyond 2021. In that case, it makes sense to take advantage of the savings afforded with third-party Oracle support and either redirect these savings to other projects or let it hit the bottom line in these times of insecurity.  

If you are interested in more detail on what The Register uncovered from their conversation with the user group, you can read the full article here.