ITAM industry news roundup – May 2020

There is always something happening somewhere and keeping track of it all can be, to say the least, difficult! Our ITAM industry news round ups aim to cover some of the important and interesting developments you may have missed, to help keep you informed and up-to-date.

Oracle get new VC funding

A New York City hedge fund, Elliott Management, have recently purchased a $21 million dollar slice of Oracle. While it is only a small piece of Oracle it does, as this CRN article details, possibly signal that changes will soon be afoot. Elliott Management partner, Jesse Cohn, has a history of entering tech companies including Citrix, Cognizant, and AT&T, and shaking them up to drive increased value and profits.

What might this strategy look like when applied to Oracle? Well, one tried and tested method for driving more profits is increasing audit activity and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen again here. The licensing changes to Oracle Java present a largely untapped reservoir of potential audit fodder and the general COVID-19 upheaval probably means a lot of license non-compliance is lurking. Oracle licensing compliance is always near the top of the list, but this development could mean things move more rapidly than you might have expected.

Further Reading

CRN article

Zoom choose Oracle

To help manage their rapid growth, Zoom have chosen to put some of their environment on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Amazon AWS is still the primary cloud provider for Zoom but the fact they’ve chosen Oracle, rather than Microsoft Azure (which they already use to a small degree) or Google GCP is interesting – did they choose not to expand their relationship with Microsoft because they view Teams as a major competitor?

Whatever the reason, this gives Oracle’s cloud story a good boost with a high-profile customer. Whether they can translate this into other cloud wins remains to be seen, however.

Further Reading

Oracle announcement

IBM extend ILMT deadline

IBM announced earlier this year that Windows Server 2008/R2 would no longer be eligible for use in sub-capacity environments by September this year. They have now announced this has been postponed until Q1 2021, giving organisations an additional 6 months to prepare and make the required changes.

Further Reading

IBM ILMT & Windows Server 2008: Friends no more
IBM announcement

Flexera rebrand part of portfolio

Flexera have rebranded part of their organisation to “Revenera” – this is the new name for the parts of Flexera that focus on Software Monetisation, Software Composition Analysis, and Installation – products such as InstallShield. Flexera CEO Jim Ryan clarifies that this is a branding exercise to “add…more clarity” to their growing portfolio.

Further Reading

Revenera announcement