XChange: Oracle, Juniper Put Spotlight On Services

During an Everything Channel Tech Symposium Wednesday, Judson Althoff, Oracle senior vice president of worldwide alliances and channels, reaffirmed the company's commitment to its hardware division following the Sun acquisition and touted the channel-centric focus of the company's new partner program.

What distinguishes Oracle's program, Althoff said, was that the company was allowing its partners to take the reins on services around its products. The company has been extremely acquisitive over the last several years, Althoff said, except in the areas of consulting and integration services. That's where the Oracle partner comes in, Althoff said.

"The bulk of you earned 53 percent or more of your revenue through services," Althoff said. "It's the one area we're not acquiring right now. We need your help and support to help us better deliver this vision to customers."

During the presentation, Frank Vitagliano, Juniper senior vice president of worldwide channels, echoed a similar commitment to the channel with regards to services.

"We believe at the solution provider level, it provides much better opportunity for you to sell the services and support that are most profitable for you," Vitagliano said.

Vitagliano also emphasized Juniper's investment in partner enablement, added specializations, its complete suite of security, switching and router products, and reinvigorated efforts in marketing and branding.

The channel message piqued the curiosity of at least one channel partner attending the session, who said that he still had questions about competitive branding, features and reliability, but planned to get more information after the presentations.

"It's good to know that they're at least looking at the channel," said James Clegg, president of Denver, Colo.-based Trusted Consulting Group. "For the most part, the end user isn't necessarily the client. We are. So it's nice to see that (the channel) is being recognized a bit."