Gartner Peer Insights reviews constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-users based on their own experiences and do not represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.
The Skeptics Guide to Oracle
Third-Party Support
Why It’s OK to
be a Skeptic
Questions About
Legality
Questions About
Support Quality
Questions About
Updates & Security
Questions About
Oracle Relationship
Next Steps
You Can Take
You're investigating third-party software support and may have doubts. That's natural, especially when it involves your vital Oracle ecosystem. Based on thousands of conversations with skeptics, this guide answers the most frequently asked questions using facts, examples, testimonials, and recommendations. Read on to answer your questions about your Oracle relationship. Then, unlock the other skeptic topics to get answers to many more questions!
Questions about Sustaining your Ongoing Oracle Relationship
Won’t my Oracle relationship suffer if I leave Oracle Support?
Even hint at leaving Oracle support, and your account manager will tell you it will damage or end your overarching relationship with Oracle. They may say you can’t purchase new licenses or must pay reinstatement fees and penalties to re-engage. They certainly won’t be happy about the lost revenues.
But ask yourself this: is your current relationship with Oracle all that wonderful? In all likelihood, they are slow to escalate support issues, aggressively pressing you to upgrade or move to the cloud, and refuse to alter their price structure to accommodate you on shelfware and unused licenses.
None of what Oracle says is true. Many Oracle customers that have switched to third-party support have successfully returned to Oracle when they were ready to upgrade to a new version or migrate to a cloud product. To date, we know of no Spinnaker Support customers who paid reinstatement fees. Everything is negotiable, especially when Oracle knows you’re planning to invest even more in its products.
In fact, when returning to Oracle after several years, you’re treated as a new customer. This puts you in a better future negotiating position than if you had stayed current on Oracle support. We recommend negotiating with the license sales rep and not the support sales rep to get the best possible deal.
Isn’t all this just begging for an Oracle Audit?
On average, Oracle customers can expect to be audited every 3-5 yearsvii, so it’s best to always be prepared in the event your organization gets selected at random. Trigger events can include mergers and acquisitions, failure to renew a Universal Licensing Agreement (ULA), lack of recent purchases, resistance to moving to the Oracle cloud, and a letter of intent to cancel Oracle support.
So yes, switching to third-party support is a known audit trigger, but contrary to what your Oracle account manager might say, it’s pretty low down on the list. In the 2019 annual Spinnaker Support survey, 89% of responding customers reported that they were audited less or the same after switching to Spinnaker Support. Only 2% saw an audit increase, and the remaining 9% told us that it was too soon to tell if auditing frequency had changed.
That said, it is very important to review your Oracle contracts (original, renewed, and amended) to understand specific terms and clauses. If you have virtual environments, you must understand how they are configured and how, or if, they utilize Oracle programs. You also need to determine if there are any unlicensed Oracle products or features that were inadvertently activated. Spinnaker Support has experience and partners to help with license review and compliance.
RESOURCE: Will You Be Audited More After Switching to Third-Party Software Support?
My employees will be unhappy without Oracle.
Okay, so not a question, but we do hear this, usually from leadership, not hands-on users. Why? Because very few customers love Oracle support, even those whose careers are tied to Oracle products. They are already unhappy with slow responses, lack of escalation, and time wasted self-researching issues. You will always have employees who dislike any change, who prefer “the devil I know,” and don’t care how much it costs the organization each year.
But how do Spinnaker Support’s customers feel about our Oracle services? In their words:
"Spinnaker is an amazing third-party support provider service that helps in providing accurate and responsive solutions to customers."
Full review
"My points of contact are always very helpful, knowledgeable and very efficient. We have developed an awesome working relationship."
Full review
"They have a deep understanding of the tools and they are very much able to deliver unrivaled technical support."
Full review
These are direct quotes from independent, verified reviews posted on the Gartner Peer Insights review site. In dozens of published reviews, you can read why actual customers prefer our services. It is highly likely that, just like you, many of these individuals started out as third-party support skeptics. Remember that while third-party support is a direct replacement of Oracle support, it is an entirely different model – support-driven versus software-driven.
RESOURCE: Gartner Peer Insights Reviews
Why It’s OK to
Be a Skeptic
Questions About
Legality
Questions about
Support Quality
Questions about
Updates & Security
Questions about
Oracle Relationship
Next Steps You
Can Take
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