Oracle in licensing furore

Oracle has dismissed claims that it has changed its licensing terms, forcing businesses to fork out more for using its applications and database products.

Analyst firm Meta Group had advised Oracle users to consider taking the database giant to court over what it perceived to be an illegal "reinterpretation of existing contracts".

Oracle has denied changing its licensing terms, which it claims have been consistent for "several years". "The Meta Group report represents what we believe are a handful of misunderstandings about the policy," said the company in a statement.

There had been no reports of such problems in the UK, according to Ronan Miles, chairman of Oracle's user group in the UK. But he conceded that any confusion at all was concerning for users.

The most important aspect of licensing was that "it was fair and transparent", he said.

Meta Group reported that it was approached by a number of users complaining that they were being forced to buy additional licences after Oracle had changed its definition of multiplexing.

Multiplexing occurs where software, such as in a web server, connects to the backend database, masking the actual number of users connecting to the database.

Customers were being told that batch feeds from non-Oracle applications constitute multiplexing software, according to Meta.

Traditionally, customers either pay via a processor model, or by the number of users at the front-end of the multiplexing software. Where Oracle databases were being used for data warehousing, a named user licence had been attractive.

This is because large amounts of data are transferred via a few large servers, while having very few named users.

By including the transfer of this large amount of data, or batch files, in their definition of multiplexing, Oracle can charge for additional licences.

Oracle denied that it had changed the pricing or definition of multiplexing. But after a disappointing financial performance, it has been under pressure to boost licence revenues.