Oracle Buyout: A Good Deal For Hyperion?

Now part of the Oracle fold, Hyperion's channel partners will likely spend a good part of 2007 figuring out where they fit in and how their BI portfolio might change.

Some Hyperion resellers are upbeat about the acquisition, saying it will expand sales opportunities.

"It opens us up to thousands of potential new customers," says John Nilsen, sales vice president at 1Answer Solutions, which resells Hyperion's Essbase Analytics and Hyperion System 9 BI+ products. Dan Gudal, president of Vertical Pitch, a Golden, Colo.-based solution provider that resells Hyperion's complete product line, says he's "bullish" on the buyout.

But Hyperion channel partners admit they have little guidance about Oracle's plans for integrating Hyperion's products with the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite. That suite has at its core business analysis applications acquired as part of the Siebel Systems buyout last year.

Oracle and Hyperion execs declined to comment about Oracle's plans. In an open letter to Hyperion's 600 partners, released when the acquisition was announced March 1, Oracle president Charles Phillips said Oracle intends to combine Hyperion's planning and financial consolidation software and Essbase server with the Oracle BI Suite to create an end-to-end business intelligence and performance management product line that will offer solution provider partners with expanded opportunities. In the letter, Phillips promised to continue supporting Hyperion's products on database systems and ERP and CRM applications from other vendors. And the vendor will give Hyperion partners access to its Oracle PartnerNetwork program and build a performance management focus area within that program.

Prior to the acquisition, Hyperion had been beefing up its indirect channel. It relies on channel partners for about 25 percent of its sales, and in the past 18 months or so, the vendor has put more emphasis on midmarket customers, says Mercedes Ellison, vice president of global partner sales. In December, Hyperion launched SolutionsNet, a program that provides product certification and sales and marketing assistance to certain channel partners.