Re: Contract...
Well, it's complex but the basic thing is that even Oracle didn't intend that higher figure. By applying their stated licensing rules precisely I was able to demonstrate that this would be their bill (even after substantial 'large corporate customer' discounts). This forced them to acknowledge their position was unreasonable, which opened the route through which I was able to suggest an alternate approach.
The rest is just commercial negotiations that I won't go into.
If we'd been hostile, unco-operative and not already spending and planning substantial sums with them those negotiations would likely not have taken that route.
Their shareholders don't look at the individual negotiations, they look at overall revenue, with the more sophisticated ones likely breaking that further into relevant groupings - e.g. new business vs renewals, cloud vs on-premise, services vs software licences, software vs hardware, etc. Audit related income may be significant enough to separate but I suspect (without checking) that its primary purpose is to drive new sales and renewals. Putting your customers out of business isn't good business.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
