One of our major problems is that Oracle and other legacy IT companies have relied on selling on high-end, high-margin software and hardware tied to big up-front purchases. Now that we have a huge Cloud revolution, which spread payments out over time and offered less expensive products (OK, we can debate this), this is all impacting legacy players as native Cloud companies like Salesforce and NetSuite start to eat our lunch…
But, even though Cloud companies have moved more to an enterprise sales models that require up-front payouts for a year or more of use — clients still perceive them as more cost-effective (often not true) and more modern than us and other legacy IT folks.