Java-focused platform company Azul has announced accelerated growth in an ongoing shift sparked by last year’s Oracle Java SE pricing changes.
Dean Vaughan, vice president of Azul’s Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, said that across the region enterprises were grappling with spiralling cloud costs and growing frustration over Oracle’s Java pricing.
“On the Oracle side specifically, we have seen a steady increase in audit threats and aggressive sales tactics,” Vaughan said in an announcement.
“These market shifts have steered more customers toward Azul.”
According to the MES Computing news website, Oracle’s Java SE Universal Subscription pricing in February 2024 sat between $5 (£3.90) and $15 (£11.71) per employee per month, depending on the number of employees, “substantial increase for most from the previous pricing model”.
Vaughan posited that Azul’s OpenJDK solutions were seen as reliable and cost-effective alternatives to Oracle Java while still addressing performance requirements.
“We are also experiencing our highest volume of channel partner opportunity registrations ever, driven by enterprises searching for alternatives to Oracle Java and seeking innovative ways to optimise cloud costs,” he said.
According to the vendor, “channel partner growth remained strong” in APAC. New bookings driven or fulfilled through APAC partners nearly doubled, from 38% in FY23 to 72% in FY24. Azul also grew its partner ecosystem substantially in FY24, adding 46 new partners.
That’s including distributors aligned to emerging market geographies, key country specific resellers, and pan-region systems integrators focused on Java advisory and migration expertise, application modernisation support and cloud cost optimisation, Azul said.
Azul Platform Core is a “drop-in replacement” for Oracle Java that results typically in support fees that are 70% or lower than with Oracle Java, it said.
“With Azul Platform Prime, businesses commonly experience a 20%-plus decrease in their cloud and infrastructure costs and realise substantial performance gains across their business-critical Java applications,” the vendor added.
Azul’s Q1 2024 saw a 437% year-over-year surge in growth, with solutions resonating “particularly well” in Asia-based banking and finance, it said.
“The substantial investment we’ve made in this ecosystem reinforces our dedication to creating a thriving network of partners that can drive sustained growth and success across the region,” said Simon Taylor, Azul’s vice president of global channel sales.
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