Oracle promises to clean up direct sales
Resellers fed up with price-cutting competition from vendor
Despite Oracle's reaffirmation of its commitment to the channel, its resellers are facing price-cutting competition from the vendor's direct-sales arm.
The firm's channel management has promised to come down heavily on the practice.
"We have come a long way at Oracle, and we are partner-centric," said Trudy Norris-Grey, vice president of multi-channel sales at Oracle UK.
"But this is a journey. To work with partners we have to be consistent and trustworthy. I want to come down on this sort of thing like a ton of bricks."
Oracle said at a channel conference two weeks ago that it would protect deals registered by resellers.
However, one reseller, which asked to remain anonymous, contacted CRN claiming it had put together a deal for over £120,000, but an Oracle sales person took the business by offering the customer a 50 per cent discount.
"The big loser in this is Oracle. I have a lot of time for what its channel side is trying to do, but it doesn't appear to be able to control its direct-sales guys," the VAR said.
Norris-Grey said: "I am very keen to get the details of what has gone on. I want to look into this immediately, with a view to putting it right and making sure it doesn't happen again."
CRN has passed the information on to Oracle with the agreement of the reseller.
Mark Robinson, director of consultancy Edenbrook and a former Oracle employee, said Oracle's channel strategy is much clearer than it used to be.
"I have been pleasantly surprised over the past few months since we began dealing with Oracle again.
"We have support from our partner manager and the rest of the company as well."