BEA Rolls Out Initiatives Aimed At Boosting Support For Solution Providers

At its eWorld 2002 conference here this week, BEA Systems is unveiling a host of initiatives to make it easier for solution providers to be successful partnering with BEA, a company executive said.

Rauline Ochs, senior vice president of worldwide partner initiatives, said BEA is rolling out new plans in the areas of field sales deployment and resale terms and conditions, as well as making enhancements to its Star Partner Program. All of BEA's efforts are aimed at making BEA a better partner to solution providers, she said.

In the area of field deployments, BEA is implementing two things, Ochs said. First, the company has branded a new set of technology partners that complement and extend its core WebLogic Platform. BEA also is partnering with smaller ISVs to create vertical product bundles that solution providers then can offer to their clients, she said.

"We're solving business problems with business solutions built on our platform, which is open and best of breed," said Ochs. "Because we're going to market through partners, we're letting the partners buy the way they want to buy."

Ochs said that while this may seem simple and reflect the traditional channel model of a technology company, she said it is a "significant change" for BEA, which until 18 months ago was distributing its products primarily through direct sales.

The other change BEA has made to its field deployment is to sync up all of its sales forces--including the partner team, the direct-sales team and partners themselves--to give them the same incentives and sales goals.

"The direct team and the partner team and the partners now have a common set of goals in any given territory," said Ochs. "We've created a little team of three that basically says we're all linked up, everybody's [focused on the same objectives."

As part of this initiative, Ochs said the direct-sales force now is compensated if the partner team meets its revenue goal for selling with partners, which helps alleviate channel conflict between the direct-sales team and the partner team.

"It's very cool for us because you can tell the partners, 'Hey, the direct-sales team is working [toward the same objectives we are,' " said Ochs. "This isn't a channel conflict deal; this is a harmony deal."

BEA also has set new terms and conditions for resale around its ISV community, said Ochs.

New this week is the ability for ISVs to take orders for BEA products and co-sell with BEA sales reps through a new bundled shipping model, said Ochs.

"There's again no channel conflict because we're trying to incent our reps to co-sell with the ISVs because it's part of our go-to-market strategy," said Ochs.

Two years ago, Ochs said, ISVs only had one way to partner with BEA--they could embed BEA's technology in their products through an OEM deal. Last year, BEA began enabling ISVs to influence the sale, but BEA still was taking the orders for the deals, she said.

BEA also now is offering free developer licenses to ISVs bundled with fee-based technical support, Ochs said. Previously, ISVs had to pay for both the developer licenses and the support.

Finally, BEA is making changes to its Star Partner Program--launched at last year's eWorld as a three-tiered program--to make it easier for solution providers to partner with BEA, said Ochs.

Ochs said BEA has goals for "ubiquity" for the program, so it has lowered the barrier of entry for partners at the one-star level. One star is the lowest of the program's three tiers.

Previously, one-star partners had to pay $6,500 to join the program. Ochs said BEA is lowering that fee, but still is deciding on a lower fee for entry. The final entry fee for one-star partners likely will be in the range of $3,000, she said.

Through its new dev2dev developer program, BEA also is offering a "free-track" subscription program for developers through the Star Partner Program so they can immediately gain access to BEA products and resources, said Ochs.

Ochs said BEA also is extending the same training it gives to its own sales force to partner sales forces at regional training sessions.

Currently, BEA offers the same kind of training on the Web, but Ochs said partners wanted to meet with BEA in person.

"They said, 'Hey, in addition to [Web training, we'd like you to come do stand-up,'" said Ochs. "So ... we're going to do regional-based stand-up sales training seminars for our partners so they have a chance to see how it is we train our direct-sales folks in a stand-up fashion."

Another enhancement to Star Partner is to regionalize the program so the entry requirements for each partner level reflect the economies of different geographical areas, said Ochs. For instance, in an area such as Latin America, the prerequisites for a partner to join at a certain level might be lower than the prerequisites in the United States, since the economies of countries there are not as large, she said.