A large European telco moved support for its business-critical Oracle estate to Spinnaker Support. The switch lowered costs, brought old databases back under support, and gave the company more freedom to change its applications.
What Is Covered in This Article:
- A large European telco moved support for an Oracle estate that touches about 95% of its business transactions to Spinnaker Support.
- The 12-month decision included a full estate audit, security reviews, executive approval, and regulator briefings.
- Spinnaker reports 80% faster P1 resolution, 36% faster resolution across all tickets, and a two-minute median P1 response time.
- The telco now wants machine-readable advisories its AI agents can act on, which raises the bar for Oracle third-party support.
The News: On November 3, 2026, Spinnaker Support hosted an analyst briefing with a senior engineering executive from a large European telecommunications provider and one of Oracle’s biggest customers. The company has used Oracle for decades, and Oracle Database, Siebel, WebLogic, GoldenGate, and other Oracle products touch about 95% of its business transactions across roughly 1,000 applications.
The company took about 12 months to decide, with sign-off from its group executive committee and briefings to its regulator, because it runs critical national infrastructure and PCI DSS-regulated payment systems. Now in its third year with Spinnaker, the telco logs more than 1,000 tickets a year. Spinnaker says P1 tickets are resolved 80% faster and all tickets 36% faster than under Oracle support, with a two-minute median P1 response time. The executive said support spending dropped and Oracle took no legal action.
Is Oracle Third-Party Support a the Lower-Risk Choice for Telcos?
Analyst Take: Oracle third-party support is usually pitched as a way to save money on stable or older systems. This telco used it for systems that touch nearly every customer transaction, in a regulated business. The executive argued that staying with Oracle support had become the bigger risk. Cost savings got the project started, but the larger gains were old databases back under support, more leverage with Oracle, and more freedom to change its applications.
The Telco’s Audit Found Gaps in Its Oracle Coverage
The company’s audit found that many critical databases were already out of support, even though it was paying Oracle for maintenance. Companies tend to compare Oracle third-party support with an ideal version of Oracle support: the newest patches and direct access to the people who built the product. The executive said the company’s real dependence came down to about six Oracle experts it knew by name, and that expertise turned out not to be unique. Since the switch, Spinnaker has fixed problems on old database versions the telco admits it should have upgraded.
The selection process was tough. About six internal experts covering databases, WebLogic, Siebel, security, and service operations scored each provider, and the winner had to clear a high minimum score.
I think this is the main lesson for CIOs. Before evaluating any support alternative, know exactly what you run, which versions, under what license terms, and what you actually rely on the vendor for. Many large Oracle customers will find their real coverage is thinner than they think.
Security Approval Came Before Cost
The project would not have moved forward without the security team’s approval. The company worked with its internal white-hat hackers to show how it could meet its security obligations without Oracle’s latest patches, relying instead on Spinnaker’s compensating controls. The executive said security is the one area still under constant review, especially as AI tools find new vulnerabilities faster.
Third-party support has real risk, and this telco said so. It measured the risk, made a failure less likely, and set up governance for what remains. That only works if the security team is involved from the start. The telco also rewrote its service terms so Spinnaker’s commitments exceeded what it had with Oracle, which helped win over internal teams who assumed the software maker would always have the best answer.
Leaving Oracle Support Gave the Telco More Options
The switch changed what the company believes it can do with its applications. Its engineers now treat Oracle-connected systems, including Java applications, as things they can change, and they are using AI coding tools to speed up that work. Savings are going into a modernization effort built on hybrid cloud and open-source software such as PostgreSQL. The company has also moved some non-Oracle platforms to third-party support with another provider.
The company still works with Oracle on several platforms, but the executive said those conversations now focus on the value Oracle delivers. After decades with one vendor, that leverage may be worth as much as the cost savings.
AI Agents Raise the Bar for Oracle Third-Party Support
The telco is building AI agent pipelines to make changes across its systems, with people approving the final step. It wants Spinnaker’s advisory notes in a machine-readable format that agents can act on, and the executive said he pushes Spinnaker on this every other week. The two companies have already connected the telco’s ServiceNow system to Spinnaker’s Jira-based ticketing.
I see a risk for Spinnaker here. The same pressure that moved this customer off Oracle could eventually move it off Spinnaker. A support model that runs on emails, documents, and manual triage will not keep up with a customer that wants fixes applied at machine speed. Providers of Oracle third-party support that cannot deliver structured, automatable advice will become the next legacy vendor.
Buyers should also note that Spinnaker supplied the performance figures, and they come from one highly engaged customer. Companies considering a switch should ask for references that match their own size, regulatory requirements, and IT maturity.
What to Watch:
- Whether Oracle responds to losing large, regulated customers with more flexible support pricing, longer support for older versions, or tougher license audits.
- Whether Spinnaker and other providers can deliver machine-readable advisories that plug into customers’ IT service management tools and AI agent workflows.
- Whether the growing number of AI-discovered vulnerabilities strains the compensating-control model in regulated industries.
- Whether savings from Oracle third-party support actually fund cloud and open-source migration or just keep older systems running longer.
Read more about the company and its service portfolio on the Spinnaker Support website.
Sources
- We support and modernize your Oracle, SAP & VMware software, Spinnaker Support
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Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
