Oracle introduces frequent clouding points loyalty scheme

For every buck you spend in the Big Red cloud, Larry gives you 25c to spend on support

Oracle has introduced frequent clouding points that can be redeemed for support services.

The basic rules of the “Oracle Support Rewards” are simple: for every dollar you spend on Oracle Cloud, Big Red gives you a 25-cent credit on your support bill.

Oracle customers that sign up for an Unlimited License Agreement (ULA) get 33 cents on the dollar.

However, there are devils in the detail. Oracle’s FAQ for the service offer states: “Any workload on OCI can accrue rewards” and adds “Paid consumption of any eligible OCI service running Oracle software, custom applications, ISV applications, and so on can earn rewards.”

Yet “Consumption services and offerings that include third parties such as VMware, Microsoft, and Oracle Cloud Marketplace” are excluded.

Oracle Cloud Applications such as Oracle Cloud ERP are also ineligible.

Other caveats include:

• Pay as you go customers are excluded;
• Support rewards can only be applied to invoices that are less than 30 days past due date;
• Rewards expire after a year;
• US public sector clients are excluded;
• Frequent clouding points won’t appear until “early fall 2021” — which could cause problems for readers who live in places that have Autumn instead of Fall, or who reside in the Southern hemisphere where Autumn/Fall just ended.

Oracle has spent months saying its cloud basically runs itself, and is vastly superior to rivals, but didn’t offer a definitive explanation of why the rewards are needed in its announcement and Larry Ellison LinkedIn video launch extravaganza.

At first blush the offer looks tuned to drive customers to sign up for long-term deals with Oracle IaaS and applications.

In his LinkedIn launch vid, Ellison said that’s what Big Red is now telling its sales teams to seek.

“Reps now get paid based on how much of our cloud service you are using,” he said. “Customer success equals sales rep success — there is not a separation,” he added.

He also offered the odd observation that the examples of Oracle Support Rewards in his slide deck were not his own work and had been made “simple so I can understand them”. Which is just a bit scary, given the offer of 25 cents on the dollar is far from advanced mathematics. ®