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John Convery, executive vice president of vendor relations for Redmond, Wash.-based Denali Advanced Integration, one of HP's top national enterprise partners, said he was glad to see Jones land at a strong company like Oracle. "At HP, Adrian was Mr. Channel. He was the father of the HP executive account engagement strategy. He was directly responsible for bringing Mark Hurd here to Denali two years in a row. He was a mover, a shaker and a doer, and I'm glad he has landed at a great company."
Hurd and Jones teamed to implement a broad sweeping channel account engagement strategy that put Hurd and his top lieutenants in the field selling side by side with HP partners. Hurd himself conducted more than 50 solution provider roundtables in the course of a year that put him side by side with partners in front of hundreds of customers.
Convery sees Jones and other channel management stalwarts that have moved on to software companies, including former HP channel chief Kevin Gilroy who is now senior vice president, Ecosystem and Channels, for SAP North America, aggressively embracing partners to drive solutions into the market. "These guys understand how important the channel is in driving growth and expanding reach," Convery said. "They also understand the importance of partner programs. These guys are not rookies. They are channel experts."
While Oracle and HP were long-time allies, the two are increasingly competing against each other following Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems and its hardware operations last year. The two companies engaged in some acrimonious exchanges last fall when HP took legal steps opposing Hurd's appointment as Oracle president and Oracle threatened to drag new HP CEO Leo Apotheker into court to testify in Oracle's lawsuit against SAP.
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