Bert Kaminski is a member of Oracle’s North America Legal Department, and is the lead attorney globally for Oracle’s cloud computing, software-as-a-service, outsourcing, and information technology managed services businesses. Mr. Kaminski advises all levels of business and executive management on a broad range of technology-related legal issues, structures and negotiates complex IT licensing and services transactions, and assists with the development of global corporate practices for various lines of business.
Prior to joining Oracle in 2000, Mr. Kaminski was associated with Rosenman & Colin (now Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP) in New York City.
Mr. Kaminski is a member of the board of directors of the New Jersey Corporate Counsel Association, and is co-chair of its Technology Law Committee.
Mr. Kaminski is graduate of New York University with a B.A. degree in Economics, and a graduate of Fordham University’s joint J.D./M.B.A program. He is a member of the New York and New Jersey Bars.
Tell us about yourself.
I’m a native New Yorker, having lived, worked and been educated in and around New York City for most of my life. I like to be active in my spare time, such as playing with my tennis group every weekend, running in local 5K races, and hiking and biking with the kids locally and in national parks during family vacations. My family and I make it a point to visit some of the world’s natural wonders, having in recent years been to the Yellowstone, Denali, Grand Canyon and Yosemite national parks, as well as the Austrian and Italian Alps. One of my favorite recent destinations was Halong Bay in Vietnam. This summer I enjoyed playing a mix of classical, jazz and rock with a guitar ensemble. Occasionally I will stay seated and read a book, having recently finished Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.
What is a day like in your field?
I manage a team of attorneys across the United States that specializes in cloud computing. We counsel all levels of Oracle executive management, product development, sales and business operations on a broad range of cloud related information technology and business law matters. The team supports everything from the negotiation of commercial transactions, to the preparation of cloud computing related contract and policy templates, to helping senior management develop global business practices for cloud computing. Privacy and security issues are some of the hot topics that we encounter in our practice area.
What do you like about working at your company?
Oracle is a highly dynamic company, which means that my in-house legal practice is similarly in a state of continual change and growth. Although already one of the largest technology companies in the world, not a month goes by without Oracle adding to its broad portfolio of enterprise software, hardware, cloud and professional service offerings, especially in the areas of software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). As the lead attorney globally for Oracle’s cloud computing businesses, this highly dynamic change and growth is what I like best about working at the company.
What would you change in the industry?
Although the cloud computing industry is still in its early years, companies are rapidly adopting cloud as part of their information technology strategies. But as more companies move beyond their initial, limited cloud deployments to implement a wider variety of services from a number of cloud providers, cloud integration is posing an increasing business challenge. Recent studies indicate that some 40% of companies rely on custom coding to integrate their various cloud applications and another 33% simply do not integrate their cloud platforms. The lack of greater integration capability among major cloud offerings in the market can introduce significant complexity in cloud deployments, and therefore may increase the level of legal and contractual risk between cloud customers and their vendors. This increased risk may involve contractual and liability issues regarding service warranties, service level compliance, data security and availability, regulatory compliance, and application integration, scalability and upgrades.
However, recent announcements of collaboration between cloud vendors (such as between Oracle and Salesforce.com, Microsoft and Netsuite) foretell a trend towards greater integration capability and cross-cloud vendor support that will reduce complexity and risk in the cloud industry.
What is the tip/best practice you would like to share with your peers?
One practice tip I’d like to convey is that cloud computing is not IT outsourcing. The major value proposition of cloud computing is that it enables customers to access industry-leading technology and innovation as a standardized service based on predefined platforms and applications. This benefits cloud customers in a variety of ways, such as through reduced IT complexity, lower upfront and total costs, rapid implementation and deployment, greater elasticity and scalability, and reduced requirements for operational and (if any) infrastructure management. Although a cloud system is often highly configurable, it generally consists of a common platform and infrastructure that is shared across the cloud vendor’s customer base. The standardized nature of cloud generally does not permit the service to be customized to meet individual requirements of any one customer. Cloud contracts reflect the standardization of the service and therefore are not normally as open for negotiation as may be the case with a contract for IT outsourcing services. Contracts for IT outsourcing services are often highly negotiated given that such services are typically custom built solutions that are specifically designed to meet unique customer requirements.
If a prospective cloud customer is seeking to purchase highly customized services under a heavily negotiated contract, the customer may want to consider acquiring IT outsourcing services instead of cloud, or consider acquiring a different type of cloud service that is more suited to the customer’s needs. The cloud industry offers a wide spectrum of choices for customers, including a variety of public, private and hybrid clouds and mix of software-, platform-, and infrastructure-as-a-service offerings.
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Tags: Bert Kaminski, Cloud, Licensing Forum, Meet the Speaker, Open Source, SaaS, Software Licensing