Your Oracle Support Bill Is a Choice and South African Companies Just Proved It

March 4, 2026

I want to talk about the Eskom story, because I think most people read it wrong when it came out, filed it under "emerging market drama," and moved on. That is a mistake. What happened between Oracle and South Africa's state-owned electricity provider Eskom is one of the clearest examples I have ever seen of how the Oracle support relationship actually works - and what happens when a customer finally stops pretending they have no options.

Here is the story if you missed it. Oracle pulled the plug on support for software described as "quite essential" to "crucial operations" at South African energy firm Eskom as part of an ongoing licensing dispute. That sentence should stop you cold. Oracle didn't pull support from some peripheral reporting tool. It pulled support from the operational backbone of a utility that supplies 95% of the country's power.

According to court documents, Oracle conducted a software licensing audit of Eskom in 2019 and concluded it was using more software than it was entitled to. Oracle first claimed the company had underpaid by around R7.3 billion - roughly $500 million. That opening number is so aggressive it barely registers as real. Eskom's CEO reportedly wrote to Oracle describing the claim as a "sharp dispute." Oracle subsequently reduced its claim to R600 million, then to just under R400 million. As far as Eskom was concerned, the amount due was approximately R166 million in total.

So Oracle opened at $500 million and Eskom said they owed $11 million. That is not a rounding error. That is a demand letter as a negotiating weapon.

What Eskom Did Next Is the Part Everyone Should Pay Attention To

When Oracle rejected Eskom's settlement approach and threatened to terminate its services, Eskom approached the high court to compel Oracle to continue providing technical support services for the duration of the agreement. The court said no. The spokesman told media that the firm was conducting an "urgent procurement tender" to find third-party support for its Oracle software.

Read that again. South Africa's national power grid - the institution responsible for electricity to an entire country - went out to tender for third-party Oracle support. Not because it was their first choice. Because Oracle left them no other move. And here is what that forced moment actually revealed: the move was available all along.

That is the thing nobody wants to say out loud in most enterprise IT conversations. The "urgent procurement tender" Eskom launched in a crisis is the same process thousands of comfortable, well-funded organizations could run on any given Tuesday. They just don't, because Oracle support feels like gravity. It feels like something that simply is, not something you chose.

It reminded me of when Rey finds out she can use the Force in The Force Awakens. Everyone around her has been treating it like this locked, inaccessible thing - and then she just does it. The capability was always there. The constraint was psychological. I've explained this to Tory three times and he looks at me the way everyone looks at me when I bring up the sequels. He has other things going on right now, to be fair.

The Numbers Behind What Eskom Stumbled Into

Oracle's support fees increase every year without exception. It's built into the contract and happens automatically. The result is a cost that compounds over time and squeezes IT budgets. That compounding effect is not theoretical. The impact of Oracle's support cost increases is substantial due to the compounding effect. An organization with an initial support cost of £401,500 can pay upwards of £1,231,773 after ten years due to these year-over-year increases - an increase of 206%, which can significantly strain IT budgets.

Two hundred and six percent. On a support contract. Not on the software itself. On the maintenance.

And what does that maintenance cover, exactly? Oracle has downgraded all Oracle Database releases earlier than 19c to Sustaining Support status, which offers a much more limited scope of support - but they demand clients pay the same retail price as for full Oracle Premier Support. So you pay escalating fees for degraded support. And Oracle's answer to that is: upgrade. Which costs more money. Which Oracle also wants you to pay them for.

License discounts don't truly reduce support costs. Oracle often calculates support on full list prices, negating those discounts. Many companies also pay support on "shelfware" - licenses they own but don't use. This further inflates the annual cost.

This is the system. It is not a bug. Oracle's support model is engineered to grow revenue, not to adjust downward with usage.

The Third-Party Alternative Is Not a Fringe Option Anymore

Stephanie asked me last week why any company would still pay full Oracle support if there are cheaper options. She seemed genuinely puzzled, the way she gets puzzled when someone mentions that not all offices have a chef. The answer, I told her, is fear. Specifically the fear that Oracle has spent decades cultivating very deliberately.

Oracle continues to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt about third-party support. Executives evaluating independent support will likely hear Oracle claim things like, "You'll be at legal risk" or "You won't get security updates." By 2025, these claims ring hollow. Court rulings have established that third-party support is legal as long as providers follow certain guidelines.

As of 2025, third-party support for Oracle is a mature market with a growing track record. What was once considered an unconventional approach is now employed by thousands of organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Rimini Street alone - the biggest player in the space - has over 3,000 active clients.

The savings are not marginal. Third-party Oracle support pricing typically runs 50-70% lower than Oracle's yearly support fee for the same products, with flat annual pricing and no 3-4% inflation every year, and costs tied to the scope of support you actually use. On a large enterprise contract, that is not a rounding error. That is multiple headcount. That is a modernization project. That is the AI initiative your board keeps asking about.

There is also a more subtle benefit that doesn't get talked about enough. Bringing third-party support into the picture changes your leverage with Oracle. Suddenly, Oracle has to earn your business instead of assuming your renewal. Even hinting at a switch can make Oracle more flexible. They might offer discounts or incentives to keep your support contract. I have seen this happen. Getting a quote from Rimini Street and putting it on the table in a renewal negotiation is one of the cheapest pieces of leverage a CIO can acquire.

This is very much the Holdo maneuver moment. The Last Jedi. Everyone thinks the Resistance is out of options, Poe is losing his mind planning elaborate counter-attacks, and then it turns out there was a completely viable option the whole time that nobody bothered to check. Chris told me that analogy doesn't land because "not enough people have seen The Last Jedi properly." Chris is very sweet but he is wrong about this.

Cinematic sci-fi concept art of a massive Star Destroyer being cut through by a blinding hyperspace lance fired from a small rebel ship below, dramatic purple and white light splitting the destroyer apart against a deep space background — Showed this to Tory and he immediately said the lighting on the Star Destroyer was better than anything in the actual sequels, which I think was his way of complimenting it while refusing to acknowledge the scene it references. He knows exactly what scene it is. He just will not say it.

The Legitimate Risks Are Smaller Than Oracle Claims and Bigger Than Nothing

I want to be fair here because I think the honest version of this argument is more useful than the version where third-party support is a magic fix.

Utilizing third-party support is legal as long as you comply with your Oracle license agreement; however, it can draw attention to potential compliance issues. Oracle can still audit your use of its software, even if you're not a support customer. Industry observers note that Oracle sometimes increases audit activity on customers who drop support, possibly looking for any non-compliance to levy penalties.

That is a real risk and it is worth taking seriously. The mitigation is not complicated, but it is not optional either: you need to be clean on licensing before you make the switch. If you have been using features you did not explicitly license - and Oracle makes this embarrassingly easy to do accidentally - you sort that out first, while you still have access to Oracle's support portal to download patches and archive what you need. Nobody is running this play successfully by winging the compliance part.

You also "freeze" on your current version. No new features, modules, or performance enhancements from future Oracle releases. For some organizations this is genuinely a problem. For a lot of organizations, it is not - they are running stable ERP systems that they have no intention of changing. You can keep the old Oracle system supported at a lower cost while investing in the replacement. Once the new system is live, you can drop the Oracle licenses altogether.

The Rimini Street legal saga is also worth understanding. On July 7, 2025, Rimini Street and Oracle reached a confidential settlement ending fifteen years of litigation over how third-party support for Oracle software gets delivered. The concrete terms that became public: Oracle returned approximately $37.8 million to Rimini Street, and Rimini agreed to wind down PeopleSoft support by July 2028. Rimini Street did not shut down. The category is intact. Oracle's legal pressure, sustained for a decade and a half, did not kill the market - it just defined the boundaries the market has to operate within.

What South Africa Actually Proved

The Eskom story gets told as a cautionary tale about Oracle's aggression. I think that framing misses the real point.

Yes, Oracle already had a reputation for predatory, aggressive audits and this case added to that significantly. Yes, Oracle's software was being used in critical Eskom operations, including an online vending system that processes 77 million transactions of electricity sales a month. The leverage Oracle held was extraordinary. And Eskom still found a way out.

That is the actual story. A state-owned utility, mid-crisis, under financial distress, facing a $500 million opening demand from one of the most litigious companies in enterprise software - went to market for third-party support and found it. If Eskom could do it under those conditions, your company can do it in a controlled, planned, low-pressure way with months of lead time.

We write a lot about what happens when vendors get too comfortable with your dependency. We covered what it looks like when your platform gets acquired, and the feeling of helplessness that comes with it. We wrote about SaaS stocks tanking while renewal quotes somehow kept climbing. Oracle support is just the oldest, most entrenched version of that dynamic. And the exit ramp has been there the whole time.

Jamie - and I am not going to call him by what he wants us to call him - sat in on a vendor call last week and told me afterward that he thinks switching Oracle support sounds "risky." He said Oracle seemed very confident on the call. I nodded. Oracle is always very confident. That is the point. Oracle is well aware that third-party support siphons off its lucrative maintenance revenue, and it employs various tactics to dissuade customers from leaving or to win them back. If you consider third-party support, be prepared for Oracle to respond with fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Oracle's confidence is not evidence that you have no options. It is evidence that they know you think you have no options. Those are very different things.

The Conclusion I Keep Coming Back To

The companies that have quietly moved to third-party Oracle support - thousands of organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies and government agencies - did not do it because they were reckless. They did it because they ran the math, got clean on compliance, and decided that at roughly 50% lower maintenance fees, the savings freed up millions in IT budget they could actually use for something.

South African companies did not discover something new. They confirmed something that should not be controversial: your Oracle support bill is a line item you chose to pay. It will keep growing at a fixed automatic rate year after year, and the gap widens each year in your favor if you switch. The question is not whether alternatives exist. They do. The question is whether you are going to keep paying Oracle as if they don't.

Eskom ran an urgent procurement tender for third-party Oracle support while managing a national power crisis. You have the luxury of doing this from a conference room with coffee and nobody threatening to turn the lights out. Use that advantage.

Oracle is going to keep opening audits at R7.3 billion and settling at R166 million. That is the playbook. Knowing the playbook is not the same as being able to change it - but knowing the alternative exits exist is the first step to not needing to care about Oracle's playbook at all.

If you are running an enterprise software stack that is deeper in vendor lock-in than you are comfortable with, we have been thinking about this from a few angles. The SaaSpocalypse framing is relevant here. So is the broader question of what AI agents are actually doing inside your current software stack - because if Oracle is eating your modernization budget with support fees, that conversation doesn't even get started.

The bill is a choice. It was always a choice. South Africa just said it out loud.