Partnership is Oracle's goal

Oracle unveiled its latest investment plans and raft of new tools at its recent Partner Network Day, reports Sara Yirrell

Oracle has never been a vendor to let the grass grow under its feet especially with its track record of 40 acquisitions in the past 45 months.

So it was ironic that delegates at its recent Oracle Partner Network day at Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium spent a lot of time watching the grass grow. Literally.
The Emirates Stadium pitch, which could be seen from many angles within the conference centre, had been artificially lit with a series of special floodlights to encourage the grass to grow to maintain that lush-green pitch that Gunners fans have come to know and love.

During the event, Oracle revealed it has been investing Premiership-style sums in keeping its global channel running smoothly pumping more than $40m (£19.4m) a year into helping its partners generate business. And it pledged to do more of the same.

Speaking to CRN, Stein Surlien, vice president of EMEA alliances and channels at Oracle, said: “Partnerships are becoming a substantial part of our licensing revenue adding up to 44 per cent of our total licence revenue. It has been growing in double-digit figures for the past five years. Partners are very important to Oracle.”

The Partner day was Oracle’s first official event in London, but its 28th in the past three years. During that time it has met with 24,000 partner representatives in 2,500 one-to-one meetings.

“This way we are getting the right feedback from partners and it allows them to tell us their views,” he said.

Surlien said the vendor is pushing ahead in three core areas: grid computing; middleware including SOA, business intelligence and Java tools; and also in developing “industry leading” applications following its mammoth acquisition spree that included JD Edwards, Siebel, Hyperion and PeopleSoft.

“We are driving consolidation in the industry,” Surlien said. “Our partners are supportive of this because it adds value to their proposition. We are now leaders in the grid computing space and in the top two for middleware. When resellers look for a partner, they know we can help them make money.”

During the event, Oracle unleashed a raft of new tools and offerings for its partner base, including ISV partners and its Oracle Services for Partners (OMS4P) internet portal to help with channel marketing activities (CRN, 26 November).

From a UK perspective, Charles Courquin, director of technology general business at Oracle, said the channel was a vital part of the vendor’s business strategy.

"Our goal is 100 per cent business through partners,” he said. “If you look at enterprise customers and then at the mid-market, there are 1.1 million [mid-market] organisations in the UK. That equates to a $17.6bn spend. We have strength in our technology, and our partners take that and translate it into the business needs of their customers.

“We have aligned the Oracle team here by industry as well as by telemarketing and business development resources. We are starting to see the growth in ISVs and also new resellers coming on board. We have a pool of services they can use. They take the raw material and put an angle on it.”

Surlien added that the vendor is also promoting “co-opetition” a term used to describe a vendor that is competing with another vendor, but also uses them as a close partner to further mutual business.

“Through our acquisitions and because of global forces we will be competing with the likes of SAP, but they are also one of our biggest partners,” he said.

Surlien said the key to a successful channel strategy was in the engagement model.
“Loyalty is about predictability and consistency. We know we can destroy things if we make the wrong move so we need to get it right in terms of predictability, impact and strategy.”

He said the vendor would continue to make acquisitions.

“We buy IP and innovation,” he said. “We invest in the technology and integrate the teams in terms of skills. We look at the people and pick the best for each team once integrated. The first acquisition was a tough battle, but we think we have got it right each time. We will continue driving consolidation as we have always done.”
Partners seemed quite impressed with Oracle’s mantra at the event.

Dave Forest, managing director of Pricipient, said: “We have been working with Oracle for many years, in our case focusing on the manufacturing sector. Over the past four years we have seen a lot of changes, particularly with the Accelerate programme.

“There has been a real emphasis on helping partners. We are about to embark on a go-to-market campaign in the life science area. On the application side there has been a lot of money invested in the tool sets.”

Mark Pulling, managing director of Application Links, said: “We have been working with Oracle for some time. The marketing collateral has helped us to go to market with a powerful brand and helps us evolve our IP in that area too. In terms of the HR market a particularly strong area for us there are a lot of alternatives on the market, but Oracle’s is a scaleable product and the competition is not.”

However, Oracle is keen to shake off its past image with the channel once and for all and Surlien said the firm had learned its lesson about vendor arrogance.

“We are going to work hard to prove to our partners we can help them make money,” he said. “Oracle is a humble company. We know how important our partners are and we realise they have a choice in terms of what vendor to partner with. We want them to stay with us.”