Oracle Openly Challenges AWS With Universal Credits

Oracle continues to pull every trick to compete with AWS. But even as the company does everything it can to make customers switch, the big question is, whether IT professionals will take the bait.

That’s not stopping the company from being in a bullish mood, though.

Oracle, known to play hardball when it comes to pricing, has made a couple of big changes to its cloud pricing model. First of these is the Bring Your Own License program for customers, which allows them the freedom to use their existing licenses for PaaS.

And now, the company has unveiled Universal Credits, in what is clearly another shot directed at AWS.

The Oracle Universal Credits for cloud consumption basically allow customers that are under one contract to spend on a pay-as-you-go, monthly, or yearly basis. Oracle claims that its SLAs will guarantee Oracle databases can run on Oracle Cloud at a drastically less cost than the cloud leader.

Think 50% less than Amazon Web Services!

The industry does see this as a great initiative that will simplify budgeting and help with controlling speed, while still providing users with great flexibility in how they use the cloud.

AWS, of course, just recently announced per second billing for its customers, so that they can optimized their cloud workloads and net notable savings along the way.

But there is fear that this will not be easy for Oracle to sustain, as guaranteeing via a SLA that Oracle databases will remain cheaper than AWS by 50% is a great commitment. As AWS continues to cut prices, it will basically squeeze Oracle to cut its pricing as well.

And while it will take some time yet, to see whether Oracle reaps the benefits of these strategic moves it is making at AWS, developments like these do signify a way for the company to bridge its on-premises and cloud business closer together.

At a time when enterprises are rapidly transitioning their legacy products into the cloud.

Oracle licensing is not cheap, but that has not stopped the company from reporting good fortunes this year. Its cloud revenue jumped 51%, making up 16% of its overall quarterly revenue at $1.5 billion.

Interesting times!