Oracle Leverages Strategic Relationships with Ingram Micro and Tech Data to Extend Reach to Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

Demonstrating its ongoing commitment to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), Oracle today announced that its distribution agreements with Ingram Micro Inc. and Tech Data Corporation have resulted in more than 400 new value-added resellers (VARs) joining with Oracle over the last year. By leveraging the expertise, resources and broad customer base of both global IT distributors, Oracle has rapidly expanded the community of solution providers offering the award-winning Oracle(r) Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware to SMBs.
With SMB IT spend dramatically increasing year over year, other technology vendors have now started to shift focus and tailor sales and marketing efforts in an attempt to penetrate the market. Oracle has spent several years dedicating resources, implementing programs and successfully recruiting new resellers as a key part of its ongoing SMB strategy.

“A key part of Oracle’s business objectives is to increase mindshare among SMBs, which can only be achieved by building and leveraging strategic relationships with leading distributors, such as Ingram Micro and Tech Data,” said Oracle Vice President, Judson Althoff. “With a customer base of more than 175,000 SMBs that use our technology products, we continue to develop programs and provide technology solutions specifically tailored to meet the needs of this growing group. The success derived from these relationships help support Oracle’s initiatives by broadening our overall presence in the SMB space.”

Resellers Leverage Distributors’ Extensive Expertise Oracle has deployed a dedicated team of specialists available through Ingram Micro and Tech Data, to resellers 24/7 to providefull technical support and guidance from the inception of the sale to well after its close.

“Tech Data is a valuable partner for technology vendors like Oracle that have strong, established enterprise practices but are looking to further grow their business by cost-effectively penetrating the SMB market,” said Stacy Nethercoat, Tech Data’s vice president, Software Product Marketing. “Tech Data supports tens of thousands of resellers nationwide, and we’ve had tremendous success expanding Oracle’s reach in the SMB market. Our team of dedicated Oracle specialists have recruited many SMB VARs, helping to expand the Oracle PartnerNetwork.”

“Ingram Micro’s relationship with Oracle has been beneficial to both parties and we are pleased with its success to date,” said Jodi Honore, vice president, vendor management, software, Ingram Micro. “Ingram Micro places great focus on helping the channel provide its customer base with the most up-to-date solutions that are designed for the SMB market. Being able to offer Oracle products is just another step in the right direction to providing our channel partners with new ways to generate business opportunities.”

Consulting Firm Benefits From Leading Technology
Essex Technology Group, Inc., a privately-held solutions provider focused on helping organizations improve their business performance, leveraged Oracle technology to support customer demand for scalable, easily-deployed solutions.

“Oracle has proven to be a consistent leader in the marketplace with world-class solutions to solve our customer’s ever-growing business needs,” said Jim Torney, president of Essex Technology Group, Inc. (Essextec). “Essextec is uniquely positioned to fill a void for our customers, namely that of integrating infrastructure with Oracle technology solutions in the SMB sector. The combined resources of Ingram Micro and Oracle enable Essextec to enhance industry leading servers with industry leading database technologies.”

Technology Provider Extends Mid-Market Offerings
MicroAge, a provider of technology products and services to organizations nationwide, utilizes its deep technical knowledge and an arsenal of emerging technology products from top suppliers, including Oracle, to meet demands from mid-market organizations.

“As MicroAge continues to see large growth with our mid-market and enterprise customers, it is important for us to expand our product offering to include only best-of-breed solutions specifically addressing this market,” said Mark McKeever, chief operating officer at MicroAge. “With customer demand for innovative enterprise technology solutions on the rise, Oracle will play a key part in serving our clients through the development and implementation of its award-winning technology.”

Oracle Technology Provides SMBs with Competitive Edge
Softmart, one of America’s leading providers of IT products and services, works with small, mid-sized and large organizations, as well as with government and academic institutions. Softmart’s SMB customers will be able to benefit from Oracle technology to not only meet their database needs, but also gain a competitive edge.

“Softmart has a long tradition of helping SMBs address their unique IT challenges,” said Lane Shelton, executive vice president and general manager at Softmart. “With the addition of Oracle, we expand the number of product choices an organization has in order to address their database objectives for 2007; in addition, our mid-sized enterprise customers greatly increase their competitive edge by leveraging Oracle’s award-winning technology.”