Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) for Business is a product subscription designed to provide faster access to technology updates and critical fixes, a longer roadmap for support and the offer of enterprise deployment features. A new pricing model for the Java SE for Business offering simplifies the plan by using a per-employee model to gauge the level of support required by enterprises or solution developers. This model is flexible for large and small customers, and pricing can be adjusted as needed for heavy or light Java users.

The new pricing model uses a per-employee approach to establish what amount of support will be required over time. The number of employees is used to look up a tier which provides pricing for the various levels of support available. The available ranges are:

• tier 1: 1 - 999 employees
• tier 2: 1000 - 4999
• tier 3: 5000 - 9999
• tier 4: 10,000 - 19,999
• tier 5: 20,000 - 49,999
• tier 6: 50,000 - 99,999
• tier 7: 100,000 - 199,999
• tier 8: 200,000 - 349,999
• tier 9: 350,000 - 499,999
• tier 10: 500,000 - 750,000

Each tier sets a price for one of the offerings available within Java SE for Business. The offerings are:

• Access Only
• Java SE for Business: Standard
• Java SE for Business: Premium
• Java SE for Business: Premium Plus

Based on the tier and the desired level of support will give customers their price. Customers who fall on a dividing line can be placed in either tier with consideration to their Java usage and/or need for a greater or lesser degree of support. Some flexibility is available for special cases and for specific circumstances.

Customers who have purchased Java SE for Business under the existing pricing and business model will be required to transition to the new simplified model upon their first renewal, although some consideration may be given for adjustments.

"The fact is that there is no 'one size fits all' set of pricing that will match every situation," reports Sun. "This model attempts to match the support required by customers of a given size with the level of support they require."

Java SE for Business offers three core features for enterprises:

Access to ongoing security and feature releases for software past its public end of life (EOL)

Customers can continue to receive security and feature updates as well as bug fixes for releases of Java that have reached their end of service life (EOSL). For example, J2SE 1.4.2 has already reached its EOSL, and as of October 2009 J2SE 5.0 will also reach EOSL. Ongoing access to security patches and bug fixes are available for these releases through the Java SE for Business program only.

Faster access to fixes on EOSL and current releases

Customers who have a Premium or higher level of support have access to software revisions, which are releases that come every two weeks or so and fall between normally scheduled feature updates. This allows customers to access a bug fix much faster than waiting for a scheduled update release.

Production quality break/fix support

There are varying levels of response times depending on the level of support, and customers can call for assistance, have bugs filed and have issues tracked into the engineering organization.

More Information

Java SE for Business Product Page

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License Overview

Sun and SAP Sign Multi-Year Agreement Supporting Java SE for Business on SAP NetWeaver [...read more...]

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