Ongoing mergers in the enterprise applications continue to make strange bedfellows of fierce competitors. Most recently, Precision Software, a transportation and global trade management (GTM) division of QAD and a Gold level member of the Oracle Partner Network (OPN), announced that it has achieved Oracle Validated Integration of Precision Software Transportation Management System (TMS) Parcel v2012 with Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) 6.2. Needless to say, QAD and Oracle do compete in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) arena, but Precision Software has had autonomy with regard to its marketing activities and partnerships. Precision’s strategy includes integration with all the major ERP players, and QAD will not object to some money for the caviar coming from its competitors. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the reasons why Infor, despite its over 70,000 large customer base, hasn’t been regarded as a serious enterprise applications contender has been the company’s spotty relationship with its channel partners. Partners currently contribute only about 25 percent of Infor’s license revenue (except for Latin America, where that ratio is 50 percent).

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Part 1 of this blog series outlined Oracle’s recent (and seemingly genuine) change of heart and approach towards partnering and catering enterprise applications to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis then moved onto the Oracle Accelerate program, which was launched about three years ago to allow partners to sell more of smaller projects in a fixed time and price manner.

Oracle Accelerate is not only a partner program but also Oracle’s go-to-market approach to provide business software solutions to midsize organizations. Part 1 described the main constituent parts of the approach, while Part 2 talked about the program’s current state of affairs. Part 3 of this blog series analyzed the program’s latest partner-enablement developments as well as the inevitable room for improvements.

This final part will analyze the offering that Oracle Accelerate is most likely to face in the market, which is SAP Business All-in-One. The series will end with analyzing mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) incumbents with an innate industry focus (i.e., without the need for templates and pre-configured approaches) as well as with general conclusions and recommendations. 

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Part 1 of this blog series outlined Oracle’s recent (and seemingly genuine) change of heart and approach towards partnering and catering enterprise applications to small and medium enterprises (SME’s). The analysis then moved onto the Oracle Accelerate program, which was launched about three years ago to allow partners to sell more smaller projects in a fixed time and price manner.

Oracle Accelerate is not only a partner program but also Oracle’s go-to-market approach to provide business software solutions to midsize organizations. Part 1 described the main constituent parts of the approach, while Part 2 talked about the program’s current state of affairs. Part 3 of this blog series will analyze the program’s latest partner-enablement developments as well as the inevitable room for improvements.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series outlined Oracle’s recent (and seemingly genuine) change of heart and approach towards partnering and catering enterprise applications to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis then moved onto the Oracle Accelerate program, which was launched about three years ago to allow partners to sell a greater number of smaller projects with fixed time and price.

Oracle Accelerate is not only a partner program, but also Oracle’s go-to-market approach to provide business software solutions to midsized organizations. Part 1 described the main constituent parts of the approach, while Part 2 will talk about the program’s current state of affairs.

Read the rest of this entry »

The blogosphere and other media outlets might still be raving about major announcements at Oracle OpenWorld 2009, such as the one about Oracle’s professed strategy of “gently” and thoughtfully assimilating Sun Microsystems. The impending merger (subject to somewhat more difficulty than previously expected, due to regulatory hurdles in Europe) should make Oracle not only the world’s largest business software company, but also a major hardware player. References to Apple Computer and its ability to successfully design and offer both hardware and software were cited several times during the event.

Basically all other major highlights from the “ginormous” user event revolved around Oracle’s “complete, open, and integrated” product strategy across the board. Some of these highlights would be the Specialized Oracle Partner Network (OPN) Program for 25,000 OPN partners, or the quite anticipated Larry Ellison’s explanation of the upcoming first generation of Oracle Fusion Applications.

Still, my special interest at this overwhelming multi-day event (with over 40,000 attendees, it likely made San Francisco residents feel sort of besieged) was about Oracle’s continued efforts to become more attractive and appetizing to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). My recent blog post featured Oracle’s VAD Remarketer program targeted at the low-end of the market. The current figures are over 1,200 recruited Remarketers and over 2,000 placed orders for the (primarily technology infrastructure) products that fall under the ORACLE 1-CLICK ORDERING program since its launch over three years ago. 

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Part 1 of this blog series outlined Oracle’s recent (and seemingly genuine) change of heart and approach towards partnering. The analysis then moved into Oracle’s VAD Remarketer Program, which was launched about two years ago to allow partners to determine the best growth path for their business.

A Remarketer is a new class of Oracle reseller with the ability to resell only the products that fall under Oracle’s 1-Click Ordering Programs and strictly under standard terms and conditions. The current figures show over 1,200 recruited Remarketers with over 2,000 placed orders since the launch. Read the rest of this entry »

I certainly anticipated that the nearly 60 acquisitions by Oracle since 2005 would help the largest business software company in the world (with more than 320,000 customers in over 145 countries) continue to make even more money (e.g., via increasing cross-selling opportunities and by penetrating more markets) and deliver an array of reliable upper-range technology products. What I did not expect back then, though, was that Oracle would concurrently solve some shortcomings that had customarily plagued the powerhouse before this (still ongoing) acquisition spree.

Namely, Oracle was not then known for being the most partner-friendly company. The giant was also largely a horizontal technology infrastructure (i.e., relational database and middleware) provider rather than a trusted industry solutions adviser (and provider) at the time. To be fair, Oracle had an established presence in certain industries, but that was more coincidental (e.g., many financial service companies have bought Oracle Database or Oracle E-Business Suite) than a deliberate attempt by Oracle to provide a vertical industry solution per se.

With its techno-macho corporate culture (as opposed to more touchy-feely approaches by former PeopleSoft or JD Edwards), Oracle was also more of a fit for the largest global corporations than for the lower-end of the market. Indeed, its customers include 100 of the Fortune Global 100 companies. Well, what difference a few years and several dozen acquisitions may make!

In an upcoming series of blog posts, I plan to analyze Oracle’s recent moves to mitigate its abovementioned traditional shortcomings. The series starts with this post on Oracle’s strategy to become both a better partner in general and to attract smaller partners and customers. Read the rest of this entry »