[pcl]

When I worked at BEA (which I think published its prices), the steep discounts on a crazy high price actually had a clever reason — evidently the sales team could discount the list price pretty freely, but they were forbidden to discount the yearly support and maintenance fees. Sorta subscription pricing before it was cool.

[fraserharris]

Support & maintenance have radically lower margins than software licenses. Without discounting rules, sales can craft deals that lose the company money.