LOCAL PeopleSoft resellers are still waiting to learn how they will fit into Oracle’s strategy as it merges its former rival’s applications business into its own.
Although it had earlier said it would integrate PeopleSoft’s partner programmes with its own, Oracle says it will be a matter of weeks before it can reveal the full details of its plans with the channel following the merger.
Locally Oracle could not comment this week on international media reports that the company plans to boost the channel for EnterpriseOne and World, the products PeopleSoft acquired from JD Edwards, and that it will not sell PeopleSoft’s Enterprise suite through resellers. All queries were referred to the US.
Following a meeting in the US between Oracle and former PeopleSoft and JD Edwards partners, overseas reports have stated that from June 1 former JDE resellers will be able to sell to companies with an annual turnover of up to US$500 million, up from US$100 million.
At the same time, resellers of Oracle’s E-Business Suite Special Edition are expected to be able to sell to customers with up to US$100 million in revenue, up from US$75 million.
Oracle has yet to say when, or if, it will discontinue PeopleSoft sales, although it has made clear its plan to lead with its own applications in all-new business pitches.
Oracle’s vice president of global alliances and channels, Bronwyn Hastings, said last month that the company is trying to educate PeopleSoft’s partners about Oracle’s software portfolio in a move to sell its own software into the PeopleSoft customer base.
Meanwhile, Oracle New Zealand managing director Robert Gosling says the company has sought to embrace the PeopleSoft partner community and is looking forward to expanding its relationships with these resellers.
“Many of these partners are already our partners,” he says, adding they are important to any successful enterprise software company.
Gosling says local partners believe that over time the combined companies will create more opportunities.
One local partner of both vendors is CGNZ, which trades under licence from the global Capgemini group, and director David Stewart says the local Oracle team has kept the company up to date on the progress of the integration.
“Obviously things change on a daily basis, but we feel suitably informed,” he says.
Oracle had earlier announced that it plans to integrate the PeopleSoft Partner Connection and Oracle PartnerNetwork programmes into a single programme under the PartnerNetwork banner.
But a date has not yet been set for formally merging PeopleSoft’s channel into Oracle’s network, and details are still being worked out on how the transition will be carried out.
Oracle’s Hastings said last month that the company is preserving PeopleSoft’s channel programmes as it examines how best to create a combined partner network.
She stated that in the meantime PeopleSoft’s programmes are essentially frozen, with resellers receiving the same margins and deal terms they had with PeopleSoft before its acquisition in December by rival Oracle, while PeopleSoft partners are free to continue selling new licences.
Gosling says local PeopleSoft partners have been advised to continue fulfilling customer requirements.
“This is in the best interest of customers,” he says.
Last month Oracle announced a project to produce a new architecture dubbed “Fusion” that will integrate its applications with those of PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. The project is due for completion in 2008.
CEO Larry Ellison also reaffirmed the company’s commitment to continue supporting PeopleSoft product lines until 2013 and to release PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0.
With additional reporting by Stacy Cowley
