New Oracle Java Price List
Today, the 23rd of January 2023, saw Oracle release a new price list for Oracle Java SE.
Since 2019 Oracle Java SE has been sold on a subscription basis by both the Processor metric (for servers) and at the Named User Plus metric (for desktops).
From now on Oracle Java will only be available on the ‘Employee for Java SE Universal Subscription’. Click the following link to the official pricelist — https://www.oracle.com/assets/java-se-subscription-pricelist-5028356.pdf (which directly replaced the old price list with the Processor and Named User Plus metrics).
The official Oracle store online (shop.oracle.com) has pulled the previous Java SE subscriptions and replaced them with the Universal subscription.
Here is a definition of the ‘Employee for Java SE’ metric as outlined on the above pricelist link:
is defined as (i) all of Your full-time, part-time, temporary employees, and (ii) all of the full-time employees, part-time employees and temporary employees of Your agents, contractors, outsourcers, and consultants that support Your internal business operations. The quantity of the licenses required is determined by the number of Employees and not just the actual number of employees that use the Programs. For these Java SE Universal Subscription licenses, the licensed quantity purchased must, at a minimum, be equal to the number of Employees as of the effective date of Your order. Under this Employee metric for Java SE Universal Subscription Programs(s), You may only install and/or run the Java SE Universal Subscription Program(s) on up to 50,000 Processors, If Your use exceeds 50,000 Processors, exclusive of Processors installed and/or running on desktop and laptop computers, You must obtain an additional license from Oracle.
This news is significant for Oracle Java SE users as it had, in some cases, become difficult for customers to count their usage at desktop and server level — where there was confusion on how to count especially with differing applications requiring Java (or not), virtualisation usage, Java use in cloud environments and third-party Java usage. All of this and more is now not relevant as Oracle is now basing Java usage on Employee level.
There are some positives and negatives out of this:
- An immediate positive is that customers will no longer need to count actual Oracle Java SE usage — all customers need to do is count their total employee count (full time, part time and temporary workers etc) to get a ‘licensable figure’.
- Some consideration, and a potential negative, is needed for the second part of the definition (ii) –“all of the full-time employees, part-time employees and temporary employees of Your agents, contractors, outsourcers, and consultants that support Your internal business operations” –taking it at face value, this reads like all employees (etc) of your outsourcers full stop. Oracle does have clearer language for this type of metric; it is a shame a clearer definition has not been used (see page 12 on the E-Business Suite price list, for example) — e.g. “all of the [outsourcer’s ] full-time employees, part-time employees, temporary employees, agents, contractors and consultants that (i) are providing the outsourcing services and (ii) have access to, use, or are tracked by the programs.”
- However, an obvious negative is that if a customer uses Oracle Java SE for a business critical application and ‘requires’ its use, then the customer will need to license every single employee — even if a customer only has Oracle Java SE installed on one server!
There is a sliding scale of base unit cost ranging from $180 per employee down to $63 per employee on an annual basis. The more you buy in volume, the cheaper the base unit cost.
Oracle Java SE Universal Subscription base unit costs
There is a maximum of 50,000 processors with this subscription — but how a customer would count this, is again a grey area, especially with VMware in use.
“If Your use exceeds 50,000 Processors, exclusive of Processors installed and/or running on desktop and laptop computers, You must obtain an additional license from Oracle.” (Oracle, 2023)
I do not know what this ‘additional license’ is — but I am guessing it will cost something…
My initial view on this license strategy, is that it limits the potential to optimise Java. For instance if a customer has even just one desktop or server utilising Oracle Java SE then every single employee must be counted. Whereas from 2019 till yesterday customers could have just licensed by desktop/server where Oracle Java SE was installed — that is now not the case it would seem.
This new ‘Universal’ license basically replaces the ‘license everywhere’ view to ‘license everyone’ view. And this subscription is on an ongoing annual basis! In my opinion, it will drive Oracle Java SE customers to think about migrating away to other 3rd party Java vendors, who will have ‘like for like’ Java with much reduced support costs. Remember that these subscriptions apply to commercial feature usage (e.g. MSI installer) of any version of Oracle Java and Oracle Java 8u211 and Java 11 but not Java 17 onwards (see this blog)
As with any new strategy Oracle brings out, it will take some time and adjustment to see how customers and Oracle engage with each other — whether that is via an audit, conversation or declaration-based engagements.
There has been no official documentation or post from Oracle on this (I expect some over the coming weeks) but this is an interesting development for Oracle customers.
The Version 1 SAM team is always here to help you understand your Oracle license or subscription options going forward. If you have any questions on this or any Oracle license topic, please do not hesitate to contact us for help.
