The potential Oracle acquisition of Sun is seen by many resellers as an opportunity to create sales and, as such, resellers are rapidly joining the Sun channel community to take advantage.
Resellers Realizing Benefits of Sun Post-acquisition Reasons Why Selling Sun Solutions Will Be Easier Under Oracle
There is a newfound interest in reselling Sun hardware despite the European Union’s investigation into the Sun-Oracle deal, writes John Taylor, Sun business unit director at Interface Solutions. In a column for CRN, Taylor states that “wise” resellers are realizing the potentially wider benefits of working with Sun post-acquisition by Oracle, and he details why.
He first lists reasons that Open Access Program resellers have always had for working with Sun and these, he believes, will continue to hold true:
Resellers can access a premium brand name, which is a valuable tool for opening the door to new deals;
Resellers can still benefit from being new to market with Sun hardware and getting in early with customers; and
Resellers can benefit from taking a different, unexpected proposition to their customers. Most customers still expect resellers to push HP, IBM or Dell solutions. Today customers are welcoming the opportunity to deploy Sun hardware running not just Solaris but also Linux and Microsoft.
Now with Oracle in the mix, Taylor sees other motives for resellers to move with Sun:
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s commitment to Sun hardware and the x86 server platform. He quotes Ellison’s statement: “We’re in it to win it; IBM, we’re looking forward to competing with you in the hardware business.” With this statement, Taylor concludes that customers can be confident in the longevity of the product range, which in turn, creates sales opportunities for resellers.
Oracle’s complementary software stack that supports Sun hardware makes it easy for Sun hardware resellers to cross-sell software or sell the complete Oracle software and Sun hardware solution. “If an engineer can solve hardware problems simultaneously with software problems, they can do well,” Taylor quotes Ellison as saying. “There are some advantages to having a single operation.”
Sun hardware resellers will have existing customers using some part of the Oracle software stack already – existing applications, MySQL, Java, etc., and this will open doors and encourage new sales.
Sun resellers are likely to be given access to Oracle’s estimated 320,000 customers, and this strong sales potential is compelling for resellers.
Sun hardware may receive investment from Oracle, turning over developments and enhancements quickly and creating sales opportunities for resellers.
At Oracle OpenWorld 2009, Sun founder Scott McNealy said that Oracle will boost developer spending, and Ellison commented that Oracle would double the number of hardware specialists selling and servicing the SPARC and Solaris systems.
“The potential Oracle acquisition of Sun is seen by many resellers as an opportunity to create sales,” Taylor writes, “and, as such, resellers are rapidly joining the Sun channel community to take advantage.”
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The potential Oracle acquisition of Sun is seen by many resellers as an opportunity to create sales and, as such, resellers are rapidly joining the Sun channel community to take advantage. 
Resellers Realizing Benefits of Sun Post-acquisition
