BEA Delves Into Midmarket Arena

Gamiel Gran, vice president of strategy alliances, said BEA launched the midmarket pilot program last quarter in the western United States and has since expanded it through the north central and southern regions.

The program defines the midmarket as companies with $250 million to $1 billion in revenue,customers that traditionally do not meet BEA named-account criteria, Gran said.

The pilot program outlines rules of engagement that clearly define the named accounts BEA owns and unnamed accounts regional solution providers can target directly, Gran said.

Under the pilot, BEA, based here, also has set up revenue goals for each territory to make it "impossible" for local BEA sales reps to sell to a certain territory without tapping integrators, he said.

In addition, the pilot offers a set of BEA products at lower price points to make them more viable for midmarket customers, as well as sales support, market development and other resources for regional integrators, Gran said.

The success of the pilot program will determine whether it will be implemented as a long-term strategy, he added. BEA will iron out the details over the next two quarters before deciding whether to put a solid program in place.

Morris Beton, vice president of global partner and alliance strategies at BEA, said the midmarket is important to the company.

"There is a lot of opportunity in the midmarket and [SMB area," said Beton, who joined BEA a month ago after more than seven years at Microsoft, where he most recently was vice president of services for the U.S. market.

Still, the company's main channel goals are to team with several large systems integrators that have defined go-to-market strategies, as well as to continue to align the goals of BEA's direct-sales team with those of channel partners, Beton said.

Semaphore Partners, a San Francisco-based integrator, is participating in BEA's midmarket pilot. Adam Farrell, Semaphore's director of business development for the western region, said the pilot should provide new revenue opportunity for both BEA and its solution providers.

"BEA is relying on systems integrators to go out and define underserved markets, and sell repeatable solutions in [those markets," Farrell said. "This is going to open up opportunities BEA has never looked at before."

Farrell added that the pilot also will drive technology innovation, as BEA is partnering with regional solution providers such as Semaphore, whose customers look "for us to integrate [solutions on a new technology plane."

Mike DeBellis, principal and e-business CTO of New York-based Deloitte Consulting, said that although the economy remains tough, he is seeing growing interest in BEA's products among customers, as well as strong commitment from BEA to offer joint solutions with Deloitte.