'Unwired' Sybase Seeks Better Business Through Channels

Dublin, Calif.-based Sybase, an also-ran in database market share after Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft, remains strong in financial and government markets and is a leader in mobile databases with SQL Anywhere. (See story.)

Now it is building a new tiered VAR program aimed at extending sales through an "off-payroll" set of VARS, about 100 of which gathered in New Rochelle, N.Y., Thursday to hear Sybase Chairman John Chen bless the new effort.

The revived channel push is led by Hewlett-Packard veteran Charlie Doucot, vice president of partner sales for Sybase's Infrastructure Platform Group.

Long-festering channel dissatisfaction with Oracle could help Sybase's effort as VARs look for alternatives. One VAR said Oracle's conflicts are now spreading from the enterprise into smaller accounts. "Oracle is swooping in on deals even in the midmarket," said one midwestern VAR.

While Oracle sales people make more money when a deal come in directly rather than through the channel, Sybase has a "compensation neutral" model. VAR margins tend to be 30 percent but can hit 50 points with the right volumes, Doucot said.

Doucot is carefully targeting initial recruits. "We want to get it right. We'd rather start with a few really good partners and grow from there." The initial tier one partners are Logicalis, Melillo Consulting and PowerObjects.

Sybase's 60-person direct sales team calls on 600 named accounts but the "expectation is that in both named and non-named accounts, half of revenue will be channel-delivered," Doucot told CRN.

Sybase will try to parlay Sybase IQ analytical engine--which executives say has been "undermarketed" to VARs--as a good incremental sale into Sybase and even Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft database accounts. These VARs also get free training and support, as well as joint marketing programs.

Executives with the three top VARs are clearly pleased with Doucot's direction. "Historically, we'd get lip service about this every few years [from Sybase] but we've actually seen it happen this time," said Jim Sheehan, COO of Minneapolis-based PowerObjects. "They've put together business plans, given us access to free training, which they always promised before but never delivered."

SQL Anywhere is "a huge play" in field service automation and is becoming one in retail, according to John Zamierowski, director of business development for Melillo Consulting, Somerset, N.J..

And Sybase IQ could be an incremental sale into existing accounts. This analytics tool pulls out transactional data out of any database but does not limit its use to a data warehouse setting where there are problems with size and speed. "It actually works with Cognos, which would still run a query across the data but greatly speeds it up. It makes both Cognos and the database look better," Sheehan said.

Phil Magnuszewski, business development manager for Logicalis' eastern region, agreed that the IQ play is smart because it doesn't take on the entrenched database powers head on.