A report this week in the Register no doubt raised some eyebrows among Oracle customers. More than 1,000 Oracle support workers will reportedly be let go as part of a consolidation effort, with the UK support center closing entirely, according to the report.
One source, who asked not to be named, said support centres around the world are closing under global 'rationalisation' plans.
"Egypt closed a couple of weeks ago. Various European centres closed a couple of months ago, such as Switzerland. France was recently told it will close by end of March, Australia closing by end of February, and the UK was told this week that it would close by February," he said.
The Register attempted to contact the Egypt and Swiss support centre, but was routed to the US support centre instead.
The only support centre to remain in Europe after early 2016 will be in Romania, with the next phase to consolidate centres across the US, said the source. He claimed this means that more than 1,000 people have been made redundant in the last couple of weeks.
Oracle confirmed some aspects of the Register's report, including that the UK center would be closed.
This is not something customers who are already paying 22 percent maintenance charges want to read, so I reached out to Oracle as well, seeking better context for its plans.
Improvements on the Way?
Customers will actually receive better support through the consolidation, given the nature of Oracle's business, the company says.
Given that Oracle supports a complete stack of software, from the OS through applications, "having large multi-disciplinary support centers allows us to better service all our customers wherever they are in the world," said Richard Sarwal, SVP and GM of software support, in an email. "With the continued move to cloud the same large multi-disciplinary centers afford us synergies with our cloud operations teams."
Oracle routes service requests "to whatever global center has a shift running for the product selected," Sarwal says. "Language support is provided out of a global group."
"Oracle Support has worked using this model for a long time," he adds. "Our customers will typically file a case using My Oracle Support and will be served by the relevant engineers on shift for that product in the various global centers."
The consolidation effort is "not just about cost - by the end of this fiscal year we will have increased our US presence by over 700 staff," Sarwal says. In addition, local countries will continue having specialists on the ground, working in conjunction with remote software support staffers, Sarwal says.
The Bottom Line
Oracle's reputation when it comes to customer satisfaction with support is mixed, as past user surveys such as this and this show.
At the same time, keeping customers on maintenance remains highly crucial to Oracle's bottom line as it transitions to more of a cloud subscription business model. Dissatisfaction with Oracle support no doubt lies at the root of some customers' move to third-party maintenance providers such as Rimini Street, with which Oracle has been locked in a well-documented and still unresolved legal battle.
While Oracle should be given a chance to prove that the support consolidation will be beneficial, customers should perform their own due diligence.
"Oracle's explanation makes sense as the stack complexity increases, but customers should monitor ticket response times and quality of service in order to validate any impact from these closures," says Constellation Research founder R "Ray" Wang.
