Oracle takes distributors online.

Database giant Oracle wants to sell 80 per cent of its product online and is turning to distributors for help.

Database giant Oracle wants to sell 80 per cent of its product online and is turning to distributors for help.

By mid-January, the vendor expects to unveil customised versions of its Oracle Store Web site for the US resellers of mid-range distributors, including Hall-Mark Global Solutions, Access Graphics and Pioneer Standard Electronics.

Plans to bring the scheme to the UK look set to follow at a later stage, according to sources familiar with Oracle.

The virtual storefront, currently available only to enterprise customers, will provide Oracle VARs with data on product specifications, services, pricing and order placement and tracking.

Pamela Prahm, senior director of e-sales and market development at Oracle, said: "(Oracle president) Larry Ellison's goal is to move 80 per cent of our sales online within the next 18 to 24 months. We'll have one streamlined e-commerce engine that will provide a purchasing mechanism for our com-mercial customers and partners."

To date, Oracle resellers have been able to buy products online via Oracle Source, a Web storefront launched in September 1998.

Oracle Store will offer improved service for resellers, including more detailed product information and more robust order tracking and reporting features.

Oracle Store went live three months ago in the US for enterprise accounts and offers. The UK version is planned but is unlikely to go live this financial year (CRN, 8 December 1999). Oracle will add its full product line to the US site by the end of January.

Resellers and corporate customers using the Web site will view a common home page. VARs can then log on to their respective distributors' Web sites using designated passwords.

Oracle will manage the site, but its distributors will retain control over order processing.

George Bookler, general manager of the software business unit at Hall-Mark, said: "We currently have an e-initiative under way with IBM and expect to have links with all our major suppliers by year-end."

However, Craig Friedrich, president of VAR Systems and Services, said: "Why would a customer go to a reseller when Oracle can offer products directly at the site?"