Oracle scores with partner portal

Oracle has reaffirmed its commitment to the channel by unveiling a range of new tools to help its partners drive business forward.

At its Oracle Partner Network Day event last week at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium, the database software vendor unveiled its Oracle Marketing Services for Partners portal that will offer tools and services to help VARs carry out effective and targeted marketing activities.

The vendor also launched a new Oracle Business Accelerator Authoring Tool based on its JD Edwards software, which will give partners the ability to design and build new interactive questionnaires.

Stein Surlien, vice president of EMEA alliances and channels at Oracle, said: “Partners are very important to Oracle. About 44 per cent of our total licence revenue last year came through the channel and it has been showing double digit growth for the past five years.

We are spending $40m in partner development every year. Partnering excellence is one of our five key drivers and profitability is key.”

David Forrest, director at Oracle certified partner Percipient, said: “Over the past five years there have been changes in our relationship with Oracle. It has been a great relationship in terms of marketing, lead generation, advertising and exhibitions.”

Author: Sara Yirrell @ www.channelweb.co.uk

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How Oracle can lose by winning

If you want to have a good laugh, take a look at Oracle Corp.'s complaint against SAP AG, SAP America and the recent SAP acquisition, TomnorrowNow. It almost humorously describes the efforts of SAP to create a third-party support program aimed at current Oracle users, especially the ones sick of paying for Oracle's support and never-ending upgrades. View the complaint. Nobody can be certain how such lawsuits turn out, but I can't see how Oracle does not have SAP over a barrel.

The chief executive of Bryan, Texas-based TomorrowNow didn't help matters by resigning. See related story.
The crux of the case stems from Oracle's ability to track down what seems to have been a spidering operation, where TomorrowNow allegedly sent a crawler into the Oracle support site and downloaded every document it could find. That appears to be a clear violation of the terms of service of the support site. Curiously, it looks like Honeywell International Inc. was one company with alleged access to the site.

Oracle charges that TomorrowNow, using Honeywell's and other customers' accounts and passwords, went on the support site and downloaded what it could. Oracle also says that this was to be used for providing the exact same support services sold by SAP.

Normally, these sorts of tech lawsuits are dry and boring, but the writer of this particular complaint makes the story exciting -- employing the radical concept of plain English to explain the situation in detail. Apparently SAP, via TomorrowNow, thought it would be able to reproduce the entire Oracle support database for its own use. The legal filing also claims the company wanted to do a "cut-rate" service; it also includes unlawyerly-like terms such as "50 cents on the dollar" and "bankrolling." I found the whole thing to be a hoot. More importantly, by using common language it's an excellent PR vehicle. When you read it, you are convinced that Oracle is 100% in the right and SAP is bad.

I'm certain that this legal document was written to be read by the public, which is an interesting concept. A good proportion of the document is blatant self-promotion as would be presented by a PR person. But there is a subtext within the document that presents a problem for Oracle. It sounds as if the various licenses and terms of service lock users down so much that a prospective customer will have to think twice about using the Oracle products. I mean, the message is clear: Nobody is going to be able to provide "cut-rate," third-party support for companies too cheap to pay the full fare. What's more, once on the Oracle treadmill, you'll never be able to get off it.

This translates into pricey support and endless upgrades. To Oracle, support and upgrades add up to $2.1 billion in revenue, according to the corporate-software giant's third-quarter earnings report. If customers feel cornered by Oracle and these expenses, will they shy away from Oracle in the first place? Winning this suit sends a bad message. The company is going to have to license third-party support for its products somehow. That is the only way that a long-term safety net can be created to assuage users. Because Oracle has created a gravy train for itself with no escape routes for the clients, it will not be able to give up any of the free money. Who would? Generally speaking, I'm not jazzed about software plans where, like it or not, you are wedded for life. It cannot be a good decision to choose such a route. This complaint, ironically, spells that out.

Author: John C. Dvorak @ Marketwatch

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Oracle is RP’s top middleware vendor

Its high-profile buyout of smaller software companies seems to be paying off well for database king Oracle Corp. as it recently cited a newly released report showing it is now the top middleware vendor in the Philippines.

The report by research firm Gartner said the portal, process, and middleware (PPMW) offering of Oracle posted 170-percent revenue growth in the country in 2006 as it grew seven times faster than the market as a whole and more than doubled its market share while the top two vendors lost share.

In Asia Pacific, Oracle grew 70 percent, the fastest growing PPMW vendor among the top three in 2006, according to Gartner. The statement issued by Oracle did not mention the other two middleware vendors.

Gartner’s definition of the PPMW market segment includes general-purpose portal products, Business Process Management-enabling technologies, application integration and platform middleware.

The family of Oracle Fusion Middleware products is composed of Oracle Applications including Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Siebel CRM, Oracle Transportation Management, Oracle Retail, Demantra, and i-flex.

The company said its Oracle Fusion Middleware has more than 50,000 customers, spanning the financial services, retail, telecommunications, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, health care, transportation and public sector industries.

"In the Philippines, Oracle is gaining strong traction with customers. Oracle Fusion Middleware enables customers to solve their most critical business challenges while providing a clear path to service-oriented architecture," said Leo Liang, vice president of SOA sales for Oracle Asia Pacific.

Oracle said other research firms have also validated the leading position of its middleware offering with Forrester Research "recognizing Oracle as a leader across the board in its evaluation of application server platforms."

The Redwood Shore, California-based software giant said its middleware product is supported by 9,000 partners, including independent software vendors (ISVs), value added resellers, and system integrators.

The definition and scope of middleware has changed significantly during the last three years in line with the need for greater flexibility, better information, productivity, and tighter controls.

Author: Melvin G. Calimag @ www.mb.com.ph

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