With so
many others like IBM and HP reaching out helping hands to Oracle partners
in the wake of its ongoing acquisition spree—five already this year, including
Sun Microsystems—it seems only fair that Oracle respond with something
more channel-friendly than the decision to take Sun’s top 4,000 customers
direct. The Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) has announced new training
resources and specializations for core Sun and Oracle technologies.
New Sun enablement resources include enhanced Oracle Sun Knowledge Zones and
server and storage specializations for critical Sun technologies, including
Oracle Solaris and Sun server and storage systems. These knowledge zones also
include new training modules and data sheets showing how to migrate from Sun to
OPN Specialized. To help drive Specialization adoption, Oracle also announced
partner Webcasts tailored to their program and specialization needs, as well
unveiling new software Specializations for its database, middleware and
applications offerings.
New OPN Specializations announced and available today include Sun SPARC
Enterprise Entry-Level and Midrange Servers; Sun SPARC Enterprise High-End
Servers; Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems; StorageTek Tape Libraries;
Oracle Solaris; Oracle Database Security; Oracle Business Intelligence
Foundation; and Oracle Web Center.
"Quickly following the close of the Sun acquisition, we are delivering on
our promise to embrace and support Sun partners and provide new training and
Specializations that support core Sun technologies," states Judson
Althoff, senior vice president, Worldwide Alliances and Channels, at Oracle. "With
these additions to the OPN Specialized program, Oracle becomes the only company
to offer partners the training and solutions they need to expand their business—from
applications to disk."
Earlier this week, IBM continued its Oracle bashing by announcing that more
than 200 customers had moved workloads from Oracle/Sun, HP and other
competitors to IBM servers and storage systems in the first quarter. Big Blue
says that since it established its Migration Factory program four years ago to
help clients move to IBM systems, nearly 2,700 customers have switched, the
majority from Oracle/Sun and HP, including 117 from Oracle/Sun and 95 from HP
so far this year.
Not to be outdone, HP announced its own recent triumphs of companies replacing
Sun and IBM systems. While it only listed three companies migrating to HP, it
did announce new tools, support and incentives to enable clients to hurdle
migration challenges, including an enhanced Solaris to HP-UX Porting Kit,
Solaris Software Transition Kit, and a special offer for clients who purchase
HP-UX 11i v3 and support between now and July 31, 2010. With this offer, organizations can receive
an HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure and HP Integrity BL860c server blade starter
kit at no additional cost.