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Nathan Biggs, House of Bricks CEO, estimated that a company with 250 employees, 20 Java Desktop Users and eight Java Installed Processors would pay $3,000 a yea

Nathan Biggs, House of Bricks CEO, estimated that a company with 250 employees, 20 Java Desktop Users and eight Java Installed Processors would pay $3,000 a year on the old model, which grows to $45,000 a year under the new subscription, a 1,400 percent increase. I know someone who works at a large place that got hit by a similar increase. I assume Oracle thought they were large enough to not care and would just pay the HUGE increase. Instead they had a team that spent a couple months ripping Java out of everything. Oracle went from making something, to making nothing. I don't understand how they could think these increases are a good idea.

francisofascii 4y ago
Maybe they are betting enough firms will NOT have sufficient staff or budget to rip Java out of everything, and they need to keep apps working.
moonchrome 4y ago
If you lose half of your customers but the remaining half pays 15x - worth ?
- ekianjo 4y ago
  If they are not stupid this is probably the calculation they did. Serve fewer customers but charge them a LOT more.
weavie 4y ago
They can afford to lose 14 clients if they can retain one that pays the increase.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Short term they make more money if the only lose 9 out of 10 clients. But long term the loss in mind share might do a lot of damage. Java's biggest selling point is that everyone (or at least every enterprise) is using Java. If they manage to push people away they will just lose to C# as the industry slowly shifts to greener pastures. Of course you can also make money on Cobol, and IBM presumably makes decent money on System Z mainframes. So in the short term it might be great.
  - soco 4y ago
    Let's not forget that Java is not anymore Oracle's property. Just get another Java distribution and you're good to go.
NeutralForest 4y ago
It depends on the effect at the margin. If the income they earn from people keeping the subscription is larger than the income they lose from people moving away from it, then it was a smart business move. (Not saying it's a good thing though)
jermaustin1 4y ago
That might be the goal. Get away from the small enterprise users so that they can milk the bigger ones. If their 15x increase in price on larger customers drops off smaller customers, they probably still boost their revenues. If BigCo was paying $30k/yr is now swallowing $450k/year, that allows them to lose 140 small customers only paying $3k/yr. Which has more knock-on effects, less support staff. All in all, it will probably turn out to be a net positive for Oracle.
KingOfCoders 4y ago
Why would they rip "Java out of everything" instead of using a free SKD/JDK?
- wongarsu 4y ago
  But then who will take the blame when there's a JDK bug? And is there any core developer offering phone support, and priority fixes?
  - kaba0 4y ago
    There are more independent Java vendors then all other languages’ vendors combined.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Do you really need that? Run into JDK bugs often?
    - KingOfCoders 4y ago
      I haven't in some decades. Not that the OP is junior, but with juniors I've seen the pattern to blame hard to find bugs on the JVM. In the end it never was.
  - pastage 4y ago
    I have never gottem good support from Oracle and never been able to blame them, sure only 5k licenses but when we do have problem they are of no help whats so ever. We have moved most installs to Openjdk. The ones that use official Oracle have been cheap enpugh until now.
- MichaelBurge 4y ago
  If the other comments are to be believed, this triggers an immediate fee to be paid to Oracle. Personally, I thought everyone(including Google) was crazy for using Java or any JVM language in any form until the Supreme Court case was settled. Even if the internet commenters tell you it's safe, do you really trust them to make a legal case so iron-tight that Oracle's thousands of lawyers won't find some way to sue you and cost you $500/hour in defense fees for months if you come to their attention?
kaba0 4y ago
Why would anyone use a commercial license for desktop users? It’s almost like “you will pay a shitload of money if you don’t know what the hell are you doing”, and that is true of everything, but especially businesses.
soco 4y ago
Java desktop users? That reeks of legacy and technical debt and all that which makes them prisoners of Oracle.

francisofascii 4y ago

Maybe they are betting enough firms will NOT have sufficient staff or budget to rip Java out of everything, and they need to keep apps working.

moonchrome 4y ago

If you lose half of your customers but the remaining half pays 15x - worth ?

ekianjo 4y ago
If they are not stupid this is probably the calculation they did. Serve fewer customers but charge them a LOT more.

weavie 4y ago

They can afford to lose 14 clients if they can retain one that pays the increase.

wongarsu 4y ago
Short term they make more money if the only lose 9 out of 10 clients. But long term the loss in mind share might do a lot of damage. Java's biggest selling point is that everyone (or at least every enterprise) is using Java. If they manage to push people away they will just lose to C# as the industry slowly shifts to greener pastures. Of course you can also make money on Cobol, and IBM presumably makes decent money on System Z mainframes. So in the short term it might be great.
- soco 4y ago
  Let's not forget that Java is not anymore Oracle's property. Just get another Java distribution and you're good to go.

NeutralForest 4y ago

It depends on the effect at the margin. If the income they earn from people keeping the subscription is larger than the income they lose from people moving away from it, then it was a smart business move. (Not saying it's a good thing though)

jermaustin1 4y ago

That might be the goal. Get away from the small enterprise users so that they can milk the bigger ones. If their 15x increase in price on larger customers drops off smaller customers, they probably still boost their revenues. If BigCo was paying $30k/yr is now swallowing $450k/year, that allows them to lose 140 small customers only paying $3k/yr. Which has more knock-on effects, less support staff. All in all, it will probably turn out to be a net positive for Oracle.

KingOfCoders 4y ago

Why would they rip "Java out of everything" instead of using a free SKD/JDK?

wongarsu 4y ago
But then who will take the blame when there's a JDK bug? And is there any core developer offering phone support, and priority fixes?
- kaba0 4y ago
  There are more independent Java vendors then all other languages’ vendors combined.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Do you really need that? Run into JDK bugs often?
  - KingOfCoders 4y ago
    I haven't in some decades. Not that the OP is junior, but with juniors I've seen the pattern to blame hard to find bugs on the JVM. In the end it never was.
- pastage 4y ago
  I have never gottem good support from Oracle and never been able to blame them, sure only 5k licenses but when we do have problem they are of no help whats so ever. We have moved most installs to Openjdk. The ones that use official Oracle have been cheap enpugh until now.
MichaelBurge 4y ago
If the other comments are to be believed, this triggers an immediate fee to be paid to Oracle. Personally, I thought everyone(including Google) was crazy for using Java or any JVM language in any form until the Supreme Court case was settled. Even if the internet commenters tell you it's safe, do you really trust them to make a legal case so iron-tight that Oracle's thousands of lawyers won't find some way to sue you and cost you $500/hour in defense fees for months if you come to their attention?

kaba0 4y ago

Why would anyone use a commercial license for desktop users? It’s almost like “you will pay a shitload of money if you don’t know what the hell are you doing”, and that is true of everything, but especially businesses.

soco 4y ago

Java desktop users? That reeks of legacy and technical debt and all that which makes them prisoners of Oracle.