That’s right. This is the final week to buy Primavera P6 Professional. After September 10, 2020 Oracle will no longer sell the program.
Sort of…
Oracle has decided to pivot away from term licenses to perpetual and cloud licenses. There are a few exceptions, but otherwise users will no longer be able to lease Oracle software for 1 to 5 years. However, Oracle will continue to support all existing term licenses until they expire.
I personally liked the idea of term licenses given that quite a few companies only need the software for a particular project, or they need an extra copy of P6 for the project team to use. A term license can fill these needs without the bigger financial commitment of a perpetual license.
Term licenses for Primavera P6 were introduced by Oracle after it acquired Primavera Systems, the company that developed the seminal scheduling program Primavera P3 in 1983. Primavera P3 was only available from Primavera Systems as a perpetual license.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: why do Primavera P6 files have an “.xer” extension? Because a company named Eagle Ray was the first to develop enterprise scheduling software. Primavera Systems acquired Eagle Ray and re-branded the software as Primavera P6. The file extension is basically an acronym: eXport Eagle Ray.
A term license has all the functionality of a perpetual license. The only difference is that a term license does eventually expire. Perpetual licenses last forever. Oracle will continue to offer term licenses for a few non-Primavera programs.
Nevertheless, you only have a few more days to buy that term license. After September 10th they are gone forever!