Oracle has hit the gas on its Accelerate program, doing even more to help channel partners bring Oracle applications to small and midsize businesses.

The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software company has taken the program into the next gear with Oracle Accelerate applications solutions—combining Oracle's applications with partner expertise and Oracle Business Accelerators or other rapid implementation methodologies. The combination creates customized solutions that Oracle said are packaged, priced and delivered specifically for SMBs.

"This is a way for Oracle to go after the SMB market," said Hal Hawisher, principal at Baytree Associates, in Charlotte, N.C., one of the participating Oracle partners. "Before Oracle started offering such tools there were clients who wouldn't even look at Oracle. This will be a competitive offering with customers who don't think they can implement Tier 1 applications under their time line and budget."

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Now they can, according to Hawisher. He said an implementation that previously would have taken several weeks if not months to get to a conference room pilot is now possible to do in a single week.

"This can reduce both the implementation costs and timeline by 30 percent," he said. "That's what we've seen so far, and we anticipate doing even better."

Accelerate, announced last year, offers tools such as wizards to help partners quickly create the kind of customization for Oracle applications usually only available to large enterprises.

The Feb. 13 announcement adds additional tools including business process flows, recommended practices, and supporting promotional materials and collateral.

In addition Oracle has added new SMB pricing for partners that allows special discounts, flexibility for bundling of appropriate products for each solution and a streamlined process designed to give the customer predictable pricing.

Partner solutions will also be showcased in the Oracle PartnerNetwork Solutions Catalog, and partners can be searched by geography, industry vertical and application product family.

Oracle also will help partners locate and market to potential customers.

The software vendor has also put a referral fee program in place for the SMB applications that includes a dedicated referral Web site and incentives for top referrers.

And starting next fiscal year Oracle will offer the Oracle Accelerate Partner Loyalty program to allow partners to qualify for increasing levels of training, sales and marketing resources, and funding for promoting their Oracle Accelerate solutions.

Hawisher's company will initially target professional services organizations. Baytree Associates has also identified health care, financial services, manufacturing and distribution, and utilities as vertical industries that would benefit from the Oracle Accelerate applications solutions.

"If a client has aspirations to grow and expand to new markets, products or services, they are a good fit," said Hawisher. "They want a platform that will allow them to scale, and one that will have configurable and flexible functionality."

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