An Oracle executive confirmed that the company has adjusted its per-CPU licensing to accommodate a new generation of multi-core chips. As of July 8, each core of new multi-core AMD or Intel processors will be licensed as if it were 75 percent of a CPU. CRN broke the news of the change on Wednesday.
Oracle pricing and licensing guru Jacqueline Woods said the company had been working on tweaks for months to reflect the reality of new, more compute-intensive CPUs that basically pack multiple chip capabilities on a single processor.
Up until now, Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle had counted each core as a separate CPU and charged accordingly. Thus a four-way dual-core server running Oracle 10g Enterprise Edition at $40,000 per CPU had been $320,000 and will now be $240,000.
Woods will host a teleconference on the changes on Friday morning.
Several Oracle partners said customers who bought Oracle wares in the most recent fourth fiscal quarter might not be too happy to learn about what amounts to a discount.
Woods discounted those claims. "We've been working with customers for several months. We were already considering this [move] and accounted for it in our discounts," said Woods, vice president of Oracle's global pricing and licensing strategy.
What most customers and partners had been saying is that a two-core CPU does not really double compute performance and they thus didn't want to pay double for it. Several partners predicted Oracle would do what it has done, count each core as a partial CPU. They also said that would not be enough.
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