London Borough Councils Seem To Be Big Oracle Users

Oracle provides relational database software for around four in five of London’s borough councils, and has issued audits to 14.8 per cent of them in the past year. This is according to research conducted by TmaxSoft (PDF), the middleware and enterprise IT infrastructure firm, under Freedom of Information requests.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request was issued to all 32 of London’s borough councils, to ascertain their use of Oracle and their relationships with the company. The results revealed widespread Oracle usage, with some local authorities in the Capital spending more than £500,000 a year in licensing fees.

Key findings from the research are:

• Of those that responded, 92 per cent of London’s councils use Oracle relational database software somewhere within the organisation
• In the past two years, a third (37 per cent) of London’s councils spent over £100,000 in licensing fees, with 14.8 per cent spending over £500,000 a year
• One third of those councils that responded reported an increase in costs by up to 20 per cent in the past two years
• Over one third (37 per cent) claimed that Oracle counted for 20 per cent of its overall software budget
• Four of the 25 Councils that responded have had an audit conducted by Oracle in the past year alone – a figure of 14.8 per cent of the sample
• Almost a quarter of those questioned have licensing agreements that last longer than five years, with two councils having perpetual contracts with Oracle

“Local councils should be continuously looking to provide increased value to the communities they serve and should always be on the lookout for viable technology alternatives,” aid Carl Davies, Managing Director for TmaxSoft UK.

Author: Sead Fadilpašic
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Published under license from ITProPortal.com