Oracle picked as enterprises' least favourite software vendor
IDC and Flexera Software survey asks end users what they really think of their software vendors
Oracle has come in last in every category of a survey conducted by Flexera Software and IDC focused on uncovering what the enterprise thinks about software vendors.
In contrast Citrix, VMware, HP and EMC were all given the thumbs up from end users who participated in the survey.
The research - titled the Customer Choice Awards - asked representatives from 147 businesses to rate 12 of the largest vendors in a number of categories such as if the vendor is easy to work with, and if products are easy to use.
The dozen vendors being scrutinised were Adobe, CA, Citrix, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce.com, Symantec and VMWare - with Citrix prevailing in three of eight categories.
Speaking to CRN, Vincent Smyth, senior vice president of sales at Flexera Software, said: "Citrix have looked at what it is their customers actually need from working with a vendor, such as providing clear licence types, clear licence models and in some cases the tools to help customers actually manage those licences as well.
"Where a vendor hasn't done well, clearly it is important that the organisation that is using software from those vendors ensures it has the means, capabilities and tools to understand licensing and usage of those vendors."
The research stated that 43 per cent of businesses said Oracle (who brought up the rear in every category) was the least easy to work with, 45 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed that its licensing rules around mobile, virtualisation and the cloud would better facilitate an organisation's migration to those environments, and 44 per cent of respondents didn't think the price for Oracle's products were reasonable or provided good ROI.
It also showed that 35 per cent did not think Oracle's applications were easy to manage, 31 per cent disagreed that usage and spending for the application was easy to understand, 35 per cent did not agree that they rarely faced licence audits, and when asked if they were rarely forced to pay licence fees, 29 per cent apparently thought otherwise.
This is not the first time Oracle has come under fire from users, recently a German independent user group blasted the vendor over its licensing processes and communications.
On the other end of the scale, Citrix topped the software vendor charts with 88 per cent of respondents saying its mobile licencing rules were useful to their company, 94 per cent said they did not often face licence audits, and 87 per cent asserted that Citrix offered reasonable priced software that provided good ROI.
VMware proved to be a popular choice with 91 per cent of respondents agreeing, or strongly agreeing that its applications were easy to manage, apply patches and maintain, and 93 per cent saying that its products were easy to understand and manage usage and spend.
HP were equally as successful earning the favour of the 89 per cent of enterprises regarding its software licensing rules and 93 per cent software license compliance true-up fees.
When asked how the most popular software vendors could remain at the top of an ever-changing market, Smyth commented: "We're at a period where there has been significant technology change, particularly when you think about virtualisation, cloud, mobile and BYOD.
"It is inevitable that this rate of change will continue for quite some time, so any vendor that is doing business with sophisticated customers, clearly has to think about the changes in technology that are taking place and what it is that their customers actually need from them."
Oracle declined to comment for this story, but did direct CRN towards the Independent Oracle User Group, from whom we await response.