Oracle Reaches Out to The Middle

Oracle is enlisting third-party partners to help
it sell software to the coveted mid-market enterprise sector, the
company said Wednesday.

The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software vendor launched an
initiative called OPN (Oracle PartnerNetwork) Access. The goal is to get
organizations that are targeting small and medium size companies to soft
sell Oracle’s entry-level database and application software.

For an enrollment fee of $300, Oracle said participating organizations will have the ability to acquire
products at standard reseller discounts through the value added
distributor of their choice.

Potential offerings include a two-processor version of Oracle
Database 10g Standard Edition One and Oracle Application Server 10g
Standard Edition One.

In addition, the partners will get online sales training and use of
Oracle Financing that extends financing and leasing options to the
end-users.

The incentive might be alluring to smaller organizations wishing to
do business with Oracle but were too intimidated by the company’s size
to try. Oracle’s PartnerNetwork boasts 15,000 members, such as Dell, EMC, Sun, IBM, AMD, Network Appliance, Red Hat and BMC Software.

“Third-party companies are seeing heavy demand from smaller companies
who
want top-quality database and middleware solutions at an affordable
cost. OPN Access has been developed to help these companies service
customers in this growing market sector,” Bronwyn Hastings, vice
president of global alliances and channels at Oracle, said in a statement.

Over the past six months, Oracle said it has launched several new
partner products, including the Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition
in North America and Latin America to complement an earlier delivery of
Oracle E-Business Suite Special Edition in Asia-Pacific and
Europe-Middle East-Africa.

Oracle said it is also using the network in hopes of capturing market
share away from rivals SAP , Microsoft and even IBM . The desire to expand in the
mid-market enterprise sector was one of Oracle’s main selling points for
acquiring PeopleSoft, retail player Retek and Web services security
provider Oblix.

The mid-market continues to be a battleground for all four companies,
with IBM believing the sector has the potential to be a $370 billion market.

“Our partners are seeing heavy demand from smaller companies who want
top-quality database and middleware solutions, but at a reasonable cost,”
Hastings said. “We developed OPN Access to help partners sell more
products, faster, in a growing market sector.

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