Looking to reinvigorate its partner program, Sun Microsystems said it will replace its iForce program with a new approach and
name.
The Sun Partner Advantage Program will replace iForce, making it easier for
partners to work with Sun. The company picks partners that spread the influence of
Java by writing, marketing and selling software applications based on the
popular programming language.
Rather than swing the hammer across the entire base of the program, Sun
plans to phase the metamorphoses of the partner program in stages, beginning
with the independent software vendors (ISVs), said Marsha Cavanagh, Sun
executive director of partner programs and services.
Based on feedback from the partners, the Sun Partner Advantage Program for
ISVs uses “tiered participation,” rewarding increased partner commitment
with greater investment from Sun.
ISVs will be able to use more than 20 new education, technology, marketing
and sales technologies based on Java, with offerings valued at over $250,000
for an annual cost of $495. This fee will be waived for the first year one
year from program inception.
“It gives us a way to show our ISVs how they can grow with Sun,” Cavanagh
said. “It’s our way of addressing the separate communities of interests in
the ISV ecosystem.”
Beginning in December, Sun will promote the Sun Partner Advantage Program’s
Industry Advantage Track, which will provide technology, marketing and
sales offerings to certain ISVs in key verticals. This will allow certain
ISVs to enter the Sun Industry Advantage Program at a higher level of benefits.
Sun plans to make additional benefits available for channel and system
integrator partners in 2006.
Cavanagh said the new-look program will be promoted next Monday at Sun’s
quarterly news blitz, an event that will take place in New York. During the
same event this time last year, Sun vowed to
take back Wall Street.
Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Sun had been a top seller of
workstations and servers based on its UltraSparc architecture. The Santa
Clara, Calif., company began to lose market share when IBM, using advanced
virtualization and Linux as a wheel, began making a comeback from some
horrid enterprise infrastructure years.
Sun’s staunch refusal to steer clear of Linux and successful x86-based
servers made from Intel and AMD chips until the last few years didn’t help.
In IDC’s latest server market share report, Sun’s revenues declined
5.3 percent from the second quarter of 2004.
At the event in New York next week, Sun officials are expected to unveil the
company’s Galaxy line of servers based on AMD’s Opteron chip architecture.
The machines are expected to be more powerful than Opteron-based servers Sun
began hawking last year, but the systems vendor should have a few more
tricks up its sleeve to differentiate itself from IBM, HP and others.
For example, at last year’s event, Sun began offering a Solaris operating
system license at half price if customers move from Linux to Solaris. The
company later made
Solaris available under open source and began offering a version of it for
x86.
Sun Microsystems Refreshes Partner Program
