Ingres looks to Involve VARs with programme

Vendor launches subscription-based scheme to help partners integrate its products with other offerings

Open-source database vendor Ingres is re-engaging with its channel partners by launching a new subscription-based licensing programme.

Ingres was spun out of CA earlier this year and has spent the past few months building up its management team with executives from rival vendors including Oracle and Red Hat.

Called Ingres Involve, the latest programme is designed to help partners integrate Ingres products with their other core offerings. The vendor has claimed that because the programme is a subscription-based model it will help partners grow margins, reduce total cost of ownership and build sustainable revenue streams around customers.

Dave Dargo, chief technical officer at Ingres, said: “Because of Ingres’ heritage we have a substantial set of partners already and we are reaching out to those asking them to re-engage with us. Unlike some vendors we are not expecting partners to go through a re-evaluation process, because we recognise that a lot of them have been active with Ingres for many years.”

Dargo said the vendor is also looking to recruit new partners in the UK including resellers, ISVs and service providers.

“We want to work with new partners that are keen to drive business in the Ingres ecosystem,” he said, adding that the firm is seeing particular success in vertical markets such as public sector, financial services and banking.

Dargo added the vendor is currently working on a number of educational services for partners to help them sharpen their skills, and is also engaging with end-user customers to raise awareness of the Ingres product line.

Neil Warnock, managing director of system integrator Luminary Solutions, said the firm was making a welcome comeback since it parted company with CA.

“Ingres has always had a strong user base, but it has not shouted about it as loudly as it should have, partly because of the doldrums it has been through under CA leadership for the past 10 years,” he said.

“Now it has an A-class management team and the timing is right for open source, particularly with the increased take-up of Linux at an operating system level.”

Warnock said the simple subscription pricing model is also attractive to customers, which will ultimately benefit channel partners.

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