83% of Oracle Database Licensees Cite Vendor Support Costs as Excessive or Too Much; Burdensome Updates and Poor Vendor Support Among Top Challenges in Survey

(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a global provider of business software products and services, the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products and a Salesforce partner, today disclosed findings from its survey of Oracle Database licensees conducted to understand their top challenges, priorities and strategies in regard to their Oracle Database landscape and usage.

Cost is Top Challenge with Oracle Database

When asked what the top three challenges with Oracle Database were overall, cost was the #1 challenge cited by an overwhelming 97% of survey respondents. License compliance came in at #2 with 51% and “regular updates to maintain support” from the vendor was challenge #3 identified by 50% of the respondents. Additional challenges noted include “security and the cost and effort to apply security patches” (42%), “maintaining performance/availability” (34%) and “poor support from Oracle” (21%). When specifically asked about the cost of vendor support, nearly 83% of respondents noted that Oracle Database support and maintenance costs are excessive or that they are paying too much. 73% of respondents feel they are not getting enough or any valuable database enhancements to justify the cost of support from Oracle.

Oracle Database Licensees Seek Options to Manage Costs and Extend Lifespan

With the high cost of Oracle Database support amid tight IT budgets and limited resources, companies are seeking better, more cost-efficient alternatives for managing their Oracle Database strategy, including deferring major database upgrades, switching to third-party support and adopting open-source options over time. For example, Oracle Database licensee Rent-A-Center found such a solution with Rimini Street Support.

“We have many instances of Oracle Database and were struggling to keep up expensive and disruptive upgrade cycles – not only that, but when we peeled back the onion on our maintenance contract, we realized the available enhancements did not offer significant ROI to our business specifically and the required upgrades just to maintain support simply did not justify the high cost,” said Juan Rajani, director, IT Application Services, Rent-A-Center. “We switched to Rimini Street Support to better maximize our mission-critical database system which the business heavily relies on, and we now receive a much higher, ultra-responsive quality of support – it’s like night and day.”

Survey respondents cited they are considering or are moving to open source databases (35%) or non-Oracle Cloud databases (34%) where possible because of lower costs and/or quicker development as part of their overall Oracle Database strategy. For those survey respondents who are looking at open source databases specifically, the most popular options were PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB.

The survey underscores that a large percentage of respondents (41%) have adopted the strategy to actively reduce their Oracle Database footprint over time. Of those respondents whose database strategy includes reducing their Oracle footprint, their #1 reason for doing so is the high total cost of their Oracle Database deployment (nearly 45%), which includes the cost of licensing, supporting and maintaining, upgrading and patching their database instances.

Many Oracle Database Releases No Longer Fully Supported After 2020

At least 73% of the survey respondents were running either Oracle Database releases that would become no longer fully supported by Oracle in December 2020 or that were already in Sustaining Support at that time (or they didn’t know). This suggests a trend toward maximizing the lifespan and value of currently licensed database releases, with third-party support as an enabling solution option in many cases. Currently, Oracle Database release 11.1 is in Sustaining Support, and Oracle Database release 11.2 recently entered Sustaining Support at the end of December 2020.

“The survey results suggest that most Oracle Database licensees are frustrated with high annual maintenance fees and costly forced upgrades under Oracle support, and are seeking better options for managing their Oracle Database strategy and landscape,” said Frank Reneke, group vice president and general manager, Oracle Services. “Rimini Street helps Oracle licensees maximize the return on their Oracle Database investment by extending the lifespan of current releases, significantly reducing annual maintenance costs and not requiring unnecessary upgrades to maintain full support.”

To access a copy of Rimini Street’s report, “Survey Report: Licensees’ Insights into the Value of Oracle Database and Support,” click here. You can find more information on Rimini Street Support for Oracle Database here.

About Rimini Street, Inc.

Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI) is a global provider of enterprise software products and services, the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products and a Salesforce partner. The Company offers premium, ultra-responsive and integrated application management and support services that enable enterprise software licensees to save significant costs, free up resources for innovation and achieve better business outcomes. To date, more than 3,700 Fortune 500, Fortune Global 100, midmarket, public sector and other organizations from a broad range of industries have relied on Rimini Street as their trusted application enterprise software products and services provider. To learn more, please visit http://www.riministreet.com, follow @riministreet on Twitter and find Rimini Street on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this communication are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “may,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “continue,” “future,” “will,” “expect,” “outlook” or other similar words, phrases or expressions. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our expectations of future events, future opportunities, global expansion and other growth initiatives and our investments in such initiatives. These statements are based on various assumptions and on the current expectations of management and are not predictions of actual performance, nor are these statements of historical facts. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties regarding Rimini Street’s business, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the duration of and operational and financial impacts on our business of the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic impact, as well as the actions taken by governmental authorities, clients or others in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; catastrophic events that disrupt our business or that of our current and prospective clients, changes in the business environment in which Rimini Street operates, including inflation and interest rates, and general financial, economic, regulatory and political conditions affecting the industry in which Rimini Street operates; adverse developments in pending litigation or in the government inquiry or any new litigation; our need and ability to raise additional equity or debt financing on favorable terms and our ability to generate cash flows from operations to help fund increased investment in our growth initiatives; the sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents to meet our liquidity requirements; the terms and impact of our outstanding 13.00% Series A Preferred Stock; changes in taxes, laws and regulations; competitive product and pricing activity; difficulties of managing growth profitably; the customer adoption of our recently introduced products and services, including our Application Management Services (AMS), Rimini Street Advanced Database Security, and services for Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud products, in addition to other products and services we expect to introduce in the near future; the loss of one or more members of Rimini Street’s management team; uncertainty as to the long-term value of Rimini Street’s equity securities; and those discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in Rimini Street’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on November 5, 2020, and as updated from time to time by Rimini Street’s future Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other filings by Rimini Street with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, forward-looking statements provide Rimini Street’s expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this communication. Rimini Street anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause Rimini Street’s assessments to change. However, while Rimini Street may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Rimini Street specifically disclaims any obligation to do so, except as required by law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Rimini Street’s assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this communication.

© 2021 Rimini Street, Inc. All rights reserved. “Rimini Street” is a registered trademark of Rimini Street, Inc. in the United States and other countries, and Rimini Street, the Rimini Street logo, and combinations thereof, and other marks marked by TM are trademarks of Rimini Street, Inc. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners, and unless otherwise specified, Rimini Street claims no affiliation, endorsement, or association with any such trademark holder or other companies referenced herein.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210128005009/en/