Welcome Darren Bibby with this guest post. Darren is IDC's Program Director for Software Partner, Channels and Alliances in my Software Business Solutions Group. Catch up with him on Twitter @darrenbibby.
I don't know if you're like me but I tend to find themes to each of my work weeks. A few weeks ago it was IBM week, then Microsoft week, then Citrix week and next it looks to be SAP week. This week was all about Oracle for me.
Oracle updated IDC's Software Partnering team on its plans around a new type partner designation for some of its best partners and also on the VAD Remarketer program that allows non Oracle Partner Network (OPN) partners to resell several of its baseline products. I also attended Oracle's first attempt at a virtual online partner conference.
Sales Readiness Verification initiative - Role Play for partners!
The first announcement was on Oracle's brand new Sales Readiness Verification initiative, which expands on Oracle's theme launched last Fall of Partner Enablement 2.0. It will help Oracle to enable and certify about 75 North American partners in the coming months on its Fusion Middleware products.
What's neat about this particular initiative is that it's not just a large scale, self-service, "take some training / take an exam" initiative that we're used to. Yes, those elements will be a part of this. But participating partners will also be subjected to a partner certification board where a role play and knowledge review will be conducted. Since this is sales training, a role play makes perfect sense in validating whether or not an individual "gets" it.
Oracle is doing this to move its North American partners up the technology stack. While Oracle has acquired over 50 companies to date, many of its current partners are still stuck on the database. There is a lot of opportunity for these partners if they can make the move "upward" to areas such as business intelligence, application software, content management, and much more.
In one respect, what this really comes down to for me is that Oracle's partner levels (Partner, Certified Partner, Certified Advantage Partner), and many similar partner structures in the industry, aren't enough to distinguish who the truly best partners are. In aiming for 75 partners, and asking partner reps to participate in role plays, Oracle clearly isn't trying to scale this to all partners. This is another way of picking out the best partners. It brings up the question of whether or not partner programs and their architectures should try to handle this type of "who's the best in what area" type of question, or whether it should be side initiatives like this one from Oracle.
By comparison, several partner programs have attempted to solve this. Cisco's partners can achieve Specializations and even Masters Specializations to show depth of skill in any one area. They can also then achieve partner levels (Select, Premier, Silver, Gold) to define their breadth of capability and ability to integrate different areas of specialization into a solution.
Autodesk also follows this plan in that a partner qualifies at a partner level (Standard, Select, Premier) in one or more industry-oriented product lines (Manufacturing, Geospatial, etc.). Microsoft also announced at its last partner conference that it's considering changing its program so that partners aren't just Certified or Gold anymore. A partner earns its level within each of the competencies they pursue, such as being Gold in Security, Certified in Advanced Infrastructure, but only Registered in the rest .
Most partner programs have implemented some kind of specialization or competency concept and I wouldn't be surprised to see Oracle's version at some point soon. Even then, I still think there's much merit to innovative initiatives such as Oracle's Sales Readiness Verification initiative. How else do you programmatically work with the best partners in a certain discipline? I think the key is to having consistency across similar programs at a vendor versus having a different program for every possible focus area.
Oracle VAD Remarketer Program - Oracle's take on open distribution
IDC also received an update on the Oracle VAD Remarketer Program, which allows partners who aren't qualified for the full OPN program to resell a baseline set of software products. The program is a couple of years old at this point and is growing nicely. There are 47 Remarketer VADs worldwide and hundreds of Remarketer partners who can sell any of the ten (and growing) software products including versions of database and application server products.
One new element of the update was that Oracle is trying to get these partners involved in more of a community. Oracle has set up a site on mix.oracle.com for Remarketer partners to congregate, and also developed a blog site on the program. Gathering a community like this is hard work. But if there's a reason for these partners to come together and work with each other, the effort will be worth it. But patience is key.
I think the big story with the VAD Remarketer program however, is that, before this program was in place, only full OPN partners were allowed to resell any product. For some partners who might only sell one or two Oracle software deals a year, it just wasn't worth the $1995 fee and the time and effort to earn the technical certifications necessary. This open and controlled distribution debate has been going on with Citrix and IBM very recently. The VAD Remarketer program has been done well and Oracle has opened up the right types of baseline products that don't necessarily need all the same skills that are required from an OPN partner.
Oracle Online PartnerExpo - Good first event
Lastly, I wanted to touch on a topic which I'm sure will get bigger as the year goes on. Oracle held an online partner conference of sorts on Wednesday where partners could sign on and see and hear live presentations, participate in scheduled chats by topic area, visit Oracle and partners in the Exhibition Hall or generally try to network in the Partner Lounge. This wasn't done in Second Life but rather a fairly attractive solution from On24. The presentations worked fine and it was a good way for Oracle to gather partners together for key updates at a mid-way point between the main Oracle OpenWorld conference. I think that the aim of networking at this type of online event still has a way to go, considering some of the chats I saw going on. But I'm happy to see Oracle putting this kind of event on, experimental as it still seems for many. This type of virtual conference will be a more common occurrence as partners try to save money and the technology and experience improve.
I was just disappointed that it wasn't in Second Life and I wasn't able to fly over tall buildings.
