Channel partners are 'not Oracle's focus' claims rival

TmaxSoft CEO says dominant rival Oracle is too inflexible for partners and customers

CEO of enterprise software vendor TmaxSoft has taken a swipe at Oracle, claiming the market leader's inflexible engagement with the channel is causing partners to look for an alternative database solution.

Joshua Yulish, global CEO and president at TmaxSoft, which specialises in mainframe rehosting, relational database management system and middleware technology, said channel partners are "not Oracle's focus."

"With their own push to the cloud and getting rid of the bottom tier, a lot of those Tier 1 and Tier 2 partners are really going to have their business suffer," he said.

The CEO said much of TmaxSoft's new business comes from customers moving off the mainframe into the cloud and moving away from Oracle.

Yulish claimed customers appreciate TmaxSoft's "flexibility and agility," compared to its rival.

"These are complex issues, and we go in and listen to the customer's problem and meet those customer challenges, as opposed to saying, ‘no sorry, that's our licensing practice' or ‘this is how we do pricing, and you just have to live with it.' Customers don't want to hear that anymore."

Oracle did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Building a channel

Yulish said that when he joined the company in 2015, TmaxSoft had essentially no channel -"nothing that would give us sustainability and growth."

Now, 60 to 70 percent of TmaxSoft's business touches the channel, according to Yulish.

A key focus for TmaxSoft is its relationships with global system integrators (SIs), like DXC, Cap Gemini and Infosys, Yulish said, adding that "in many cases" it is "replacing the competition" with its own relational database, Tibero.

"When you're dealing with enterprise customers on a legacy modernisation, it's a little harder for a big enterprise customer to say, ‘I trust that to TmaxSoft right now.' But if we partner with an SI that they have a deep relationship with, they bring that level of trust in us. That has helped to accelerate some of the deals we have driven."

In 2018, TmaxSoft plans to formalise its partner program and "put in stronger enablement plans for the channel," Yulish added.