Oracle Teams with Dell to Boost Application Server Business

Oracle has upped its concentration on its application server division, heavily marketing the technology and increasing the number of channel partners for the Oracle 9i Application Server. Oracle officials say the Dell alliance is a significant milestone and that the computer makers' growing server business will give Oracle a solid hardware platform to compete against BEA Systems and IBM, the current leaders in the application server market.

"We've got an enormous amount of momentum, especially in our channel," said Thomas Kurian, senior vice president of Oracle 9i Application Server development. "This is more proof that our app server business is growing very rapidly."

Oracle has put more focus on indirect sales recently, yet Dell has championed the direct sales model. Kurian, however, said he doesn't believe the Dell agreement will disrupt Oracle's progress with partners and said his company will continue to grow its channel.

Oracle, which has a major presence at LinuxWorld in San Francisco this week and has put an increasing emphasis on open source, said there is a great deal of potential for Linux-based Oracle 9i Application Servers on Dell hardware.

"There is a lot of interest in Linux from the Oracle community," Kurian said. "The application developers love Linux because it's got such a small product footprint and is easy to install and build applications for. We'll probably sell more 9iAS on Dell servers running Windows initially, but the demand for Linux is growing."