“Oracle has started to dispatch Java audit letters to Fortune 200 companies for the first time, according to one licensing expert.”
Oracle moved Java to per-employee pricing that Gartner puts at two to five times the old cost. Now audit letters are hitting the Fortune 100, including firms that pay Oracle nothing for Java. One retailer got a $4 million annual bill for a point-of-sale rollout. Gartner expects over 80% of Java apps on third-party runtimes by 2026. Oracle is squeezing the customers it will lose anyway.