New blow as channel chief quits for Asera

Oracle's often-embattled reseller programme suffered a new blow last week with the resignation of Gamiel Gran as the software developer's senior director of channel operations.

Oracle's often-embattled reseller programme suffered a new blow last week with the resignation of Gamiel Gran as the software developer's senior director of channel operations.

Gran, who has spearheaded many of Oracle's recent partner programmes, including the channel push for Oracle's dot com Suite e-business product, and the growth of the Oracle Service Provider programme, has taken on a new position with US e-business application hosting firm Asera.

Gran has assumed the role of vice-president of business development at Asera and will be leading the company's new partner drive. "My responsibility will be to design and deploy the entire partner and channel strategy for Asera worldwide," he said.

Asera, a Kleiner-Perkins company, provides hosted front-end e-business solutions designed to improve its customers' business-to-business channel and sales operations. The company's main product, Asera eService, is a hosted e-business application based on an open, modular architecture designed to automate a company's marketing, sales and support products through all types of distribution channels.

Not surprisingly, Asera's technology core is made up of a number of engineers who also used to work at Oracle, said Gran. "Software is turning into a service, and companies that understand it and become early leaders in that sector will do extremely well. I wanted to be a part of the transformation of that model - from large-scale sales efforts to services - and I want to help turn it into something big."

An Oracle representative was unavailable to comment on Gran's departure or to say who would be replacing him.