Sun Microsystems Inc. and application
service provider eOnline Tuesday
hooked up to offer enterprise software solutions to mid- and large-sized
companies worldwide in a deal worth more than $90 million.
eOnline will use Sun’s (SUNW)
Enterprise and Netra servers as the platform for delivering services to
customers with more than 500 users.
Also, the companies said eOnline will join Sun’s ServiceProvider.com
initiative. Sun’s ServiceProvider.com program offers
ASPs, ISPs and NSPs a host of products, services and business practices
that help them quickly develop and deploy new services while optimizing
operations.
A key element of the ServiceProvider.com initiative is Sun’s commitment to
compensate its sales force with sales to enterprise customers and for
directing enterprise customers to Sun Service Providers, in order to create
demand and stimulate revenue for SPs.
Sun’s global sales force will be encouraged to refer their enterprise
customers to eOnline’s services for SAP solutions, extending the
reach of application services to an even wider audience. Through their
relationship, Sun and eOnline will be able to offer SAP solutions —
including application implementation, application maintenance, technology
lifecycle management and infrastructure management services — as a fully
bundled e-service to their customers.
“eOnline was founded to deliver the business advantage of integrated
enterprise applications to small- and medium-sized companies. But we soon
discovered untapped demand for our services among larger enterprises as
well,” said Adrian Ionel, eOnline’s chairman and chief executive officer.
“The scalability and reliability of the Sun platform, combined with the
expertise and global reach of the Sun sales force,
made Sun the obvious partner for eOnline as we expand to deliver our
services to the broader enterprise marketplace.”
eOnline is a certified SAP Application Service Provider and is dedicated
exclusively to delivering SAP solutions through the Internet or Virtual
Private Networks (VPNs). SAP solutions are hosted and managed in eOnline’s
state-of-the-art Application Service Centers, which now will be outfitted
with Sun Enterprise servers.
