Oracle Readies Cloud Blitz With New Partner Specialization, Integration Programs

October 1, 2012 Off By David
Grazed from CRN.  Author: Chad Berndston.

Oracle (NSDQ:ORCL) plans to attack the cloud computing opportunity with a slew of new channel offerings for its 25,000 partners, including programs that will designate specialized Oracle partners as cloud builders and others that will pay partners referral fees and extra incentives for their cloud integration expertise.

It’s the latest in a series of cloud-centric moves from the software giant, for which a software-and-services strategy is seen as increasingly important as its hardware business continues to erode. The launch is actually five distinct channel offerings that Judson Althoff, Oracle senior vice president, worldwide alliances and channels, is scheduled to unveil to partners during an Oracle Partner Network (OPN) keynote on Sunday — the channel kickoff to Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco…

In an exclusive interview with CRN leading up to the conference, Althoff said the new programs fall right in line with both the partner specialization and hardware-software "engineered systems" strategies toward which Oracle has been pushing partners for some time now. Topping that list is a specific designation for Oracle Cloud Builders, a branded certification intended for those Oracle partners that can develop comprehensive private cloud infrastructure expertise…

Read more from the source @ http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/240008131/oracle-readies-cloud-blitz-with-new-partner-specialization-integration-programs.htm