BAP

Overview of the Business Alliance Programme

Alliance for Success

Oracle's Business Alliance Programme (BAP) creates, fosters and expands relationships with leading information technology companies around the world, providing mutual customers with a broad range of products and services. More than 5,000 participants, including software developers, hardware vendors, distributors and resellers, consultants, and systems integrators, currently offer more than 3,500 products and services that support Oracle technology. Learn more about this wide range of solutions and our comprehensive list of programs available to third parties by selecting the options above.

Overview of the Business Alliance Programme

In this section, you will find the following:

  1. Types of Alliances
  2. Q&A with Ray Lane, President of Worldwide Operations, Oracle Corp.
  3. Program Features
  4. Initiatives and Programs

Types of Alliances

Oracle's Business Alliance Programme includes the following types of alliances:

*Independent Software Vendor Alliance - Application Providers, that develop and resell applications that embed the Oracle database, and Complementary Software Providers, that develop software to run alongside, not embed, the Oracle database
*Platform Alliance - hardware and operating system providers
*Professional Services Alliance - services and systems integration providers
*Distributor Alliance - value-added distributors
*Education Alliance - training services providers

Are you interested in becoming an Oracle Business Alliance Programme member?

Business Alliance Programme Questions and Answers

Raymond J. Lane, President of Worldwide Operations, Oracle Corporation, answers some of the most frequently asked questions by prospective BAP members

What is the Business Alliance Programme (BAP)? The Business Alliance Programme helps promote sales opportunities, globally, for companies that provide Oracle-based products and services. Of the 5,000 companies that have already joined the BAP, many are leaders in their own markets. Oracle offers the most advanced technology ranging from enterprise-wide client/server solutions, to products rightsized for the desktop environment, all of which complement our flagship product, Oracle7. This technology, combined with our rich selection of programs and services, has made Oracle the market leader it is today. Bring your value-added proposition to the Business Alliance Programme, and you could increase your market share, and improve your bottom line dramatically.

What can it do for me? The Business Alliance Programme can support you in selling your Oracle-based application or service, and help you expand your market to any of the 93 countries where we have trained staff to support you. The BAP will provide vehicles for publicity as you are featured at Oracle events, in our publications, and through electronic media. And Oracle's Worldwide Services organization can help you speed the growth of your product line with expert consulting.

Why should I choose Oracle over another information management company? Look at it this way: Oracle has 45% percent of the worldwide market for open systems relational databases. That's double the share of our nearest competitor. If you join our Business Alliance Programme, you gain more potential reach and geographic scope than if you partnered with any of the other companies. Oracle has the market leadership, resources, staff, and technology to create opportunities that help to ensure the success of our business relationships.

Is this program necessarily a good fit for my company? Very likely, yes. The Business Alliance Programme offers alliances designed for specific types of business allies. So if you are a hardware vendor, tools provider, applications developer, distributor, consulting firm, or support and services organization, one of the programme's alliances is probably a natural fit for you.

How do I know Oracle is committed to supporting Programme members? Our direct sales force has a specific incentive to involve programme members solutions in sales opportunities. We have Regional Alliance Managers who match customer requirements with solutions you offer. The commitment continues in Oracle's R&D organization where specific technology sharing with BAP members is promoted, and where published API's provide the foundation for BAP members technological development. And Oracle invested in building a Worldwide Alliances infrastructure, now over 500 people strong, that is unmatched in the range of services we provide to companies like yours. One of those services is providing our entire sales force and Oracle end-users an updated directory of Programme members' products and services every six months.

Okay, Oracle is huge. Why do you want my company to join your program? Because you can bring value to the Oracle ecosystem. You may have specialized knowledge of a vertical market, or a best-of-breed product, or a unique vision that will uncover a new opportunity for us both. If we combine our leading products with your leading product or service, no other solution in the industry will be able to compete. Together, we can provide a solution whose whole far exceeds the sum of its parts.

Don't some Programme members compete with Oracle? Of course. We believe in healthy coopetition because no single vendor has the bandwidth to develop, integrate, sell, and support the industry's best software, best hardware, and best peripherals. Our sales force focuses on selling solutions that help our customers meet their own goals even if the solutions aren't 100-percent Oracle.

Has your alliance programme delivered real results for its members? Yes. Here's the evidence: in 1993, indirect sales accounted for only 11% of Oracle's license revenue. In 1995, that number grew to over 30% of our $1.6 billion-plus license revenue. I attribute this significant jump directly to the success of the Business Alliance Programme. In fact, I have charged Oracle's sales force with the goal of realizing more than 50% of our revenue through our business allies by the end of 1997. At this rate, I think we'll make it.

Business Alliance Programme Features

The following services are available to Business Alliance Programme members:

  • Technical Support
    *Telephone and Electronic Technical Support
    *Design and Migration, Performance Optimization and Benchmarking Services
    *Porting; Localization and Nationalization Support
    *Development and Marketing Licenses
    *User and Developer Conferences
    *Access to Pre-release Software
    *Technical Training
  • Worldwide Sales Support
    • *Sales Training, Tools and Collateral
    *Worldwide Sales Organization Encouraged to Initiate Joint Sales
  • Market Development Programs
    • *Listing in Global Business Alliance Programme Catalogue and CD-ROM, in Industry Catalogues, and on the World Wide Web
    *Public Relations and Advertising Opportunities in Oracle Publications
    *Business Alliance Programme Conferences to Assist Partners in Broadening their Markets and Technologies
    *Direct and Marriage Mail Programs
    *Consistent Worldwide Business Practices
    *Flexible Financing Options
    *Global Contracts
    *Automated Reporting and Order Entry

    • Are you interested in becoming an Oracle Business Alliance Programme member?

    BAP Initiatives and Programs

    Initiatives

    Oracle offers several Technology Initiative programs to its Business Alliance Programme members. These initiatives are unique programs that assist BAP Partner in providing products and services that complement Oracle's products in a particular technology area. The objective of these initiatives is to create a broad selection of high quality products from our Alliance Partners that, when combined, provide a robust solution for Oracle end users. Participating Partners attend confidential technical briefings explaining Oracle's products and directions, receive advanced pre-release software and APIs, and participate in joint marketing activities to educate end-users about these Oracle/BAP Partner solutions. Oracle's Initiatives are the following:

    *Cooperative Applications Initiative (CAI)
    *Systems Management Tools Initiative (SMTI)
    *Warehouse Technology Initiative (WTI)
    *Migration Technology Initiative (MTI)

    Programs

    Several programs which are focused on specific markets exist within the Business Alliance Programme. Currently these programs are:

    *Value Provider Program for Workgroup Market - Application Providers and Service Providers
    *New Media Alliance Providers of interactive media technologies and services

    Independent Software Vendor Alliance

    Application Providers Oracle Application Providers develop vertical and cross-industry software applications that use Oracle technologies directly as part of the application. These BAP Partners typically resell or sublicense Oracle database, tools and other products to customers as part of their normal business operations. Oracle Application Providers add value by providing solutions and expertise in industries (such as financial services, retail, telecommunications) or horizontal applications (such as sales automation).

    Complementary Software Providers Oracle Complementary Software Providers provide tools and interface solutions that enhance Oracle technologies. They supply products which work with Oracle's products and offer customers a greater range of capabilities and software to help end users realize the best performance from their Oracle-based applications. Typically, they do not resell or sublicense any Oracle products.

    Platform Alliance

    This alliance program includes major hardware manufacturers and operating system providers. Oracle develops integrated database, tools and application solutions jointly with these industry influencers that deliver best performance across multiple architectures and operating systems. Oracle and its Platform Alliance Partners also implement integrated marketing and sales relationships.

    Distributor Alliance

    This program primarily focuses on the client/server, database and tools market segments. These value-added distributors have dedicated resources to provide systems integration expertise and a wide variety of technical, marketing and support services to Oracle resellers.

    Education Alliance

    Oracle's Education Alliance program offers Partners a variety of options for participating in the education business. Partners may resell media-based training products and Oracle Education training units, and - once accredited - may teach selected Oracle courses. The program is designed for commercial and corporate developers, value added resellers, technical service providers, and systems integrators.

    Professional Services Alliance

    Services and Integration Providers Services and Integration Providers include the Big 6 consulting companies and global systems integrators. On a worldwide basis, these BAP Partners provide a comprehensive range of services including business, technology and solutions consulting. Regional Systems Integrators Systems Integrators provide network services, consulting, applications, platform systems, and project management. Systems Integrators work on a national or regional basis, and typically have vertical expertise in a particular industry.

    Value Provider Program

    Application Providers for Workgroup Market Application Providers in the Value Provider Program create and sell Oracle-based products to the workgroup market. These products are applications that embed the Oracle database, as well as tools and interface solutions that run alongside the Oracle database. Service Providers for Workgroup Market The Service Providers within the Value Provider Program offer a wide range of services to end-user customers in the workgroup space. Services range from systems integration to training and support. The program focuses on building Oracle Workgroup/2000 expertise within these particular firms.

    Cooperative Applications Initiative (CAI)

    Through the Cooperative Applications Initiative (CAI), Oracle teams with leading third-party Partners to make available to end users an extensive selection of software that can be integrated with Oracle Applications. Oracle Applications is a suite of software products that deliver powerful, flexible client/server solutions for managing finance, human resources, manufacturing, and project control information. The open interface architecture of Oracle Applications is specifically designed to allow the seamless integration of third-party solutions with no additional programming. Oracle seeks out leading solution providers in a wide range of industries to become CAI Partners. That means that end-user customers have access to a rich variety of software that complements or adds value to Oracle products. End users can create comprehensive, yet focused, solutions that target specific needs.

    Systems Management Tools Initiative (SMTI)

    Many Oracle customers are calling for mainframe-quality systems management tools to support their open systems environments. Oracle understands their needs yet believes that no single vendor can provide a comprehensive set of open systems management and networking products. Because of this, Oracle has created the Systems Management Tools Initiative (SMTI). Through SMTI, Oracle works with leading systems management tools vendors to offer an extensive selection of administrative products tailored specifically to open and heterogeneous environments. These alliances of expertise and experience give migrating organizations the support and tools they need to implement larger-scale systems. For additional information on SMTI, please contact infosmti@oracle.com. Systems Management Tools Initiative (SMTI) on the Web

    Warehouse Technology Initiative (WTI)

    As more organizations seek to exploit their wealth of operational data, there is a growing need for specialized tools designed to quickly and efficiently extract, transform, analyze, and process this data. Believing that no single software vendor can provide a comprehensive set of warehouse tools, Oracle created WTI to foster close working relationships between Oracle and data warehouse technology vendors. WTI offers warehouse product vendors an opportunity to partner their technology with Oracle's database technology. Through cooperative efforts, warehouse product vendors and Oracle can offer a rich variety of products that are tightly integrated with the Oracle database. For additional information on WTI, please contact infowti@oracle.com.

    Migration Technology Initiative (MTI)

    As more organizations move to open systems, there is a growing need for migration tools, services, and expertise to ease the migration of existing applications to open systems. Oracle, the market leader in database technology, is helping facilitate this move through its business alliances. Since no single software vendor can provide every migration tool necessary for the wide range of proprietary, mainframe, midrange, and other platforms, Oracle created the Migration Technology Initiative (MTI). This initiative fosters closer working relationships between Oracle and migration technology vendors to speed the migration of databases and applications to Oracle. MTI gives migration technology vendors and opportunity to partner their technology with Oracle's database and conversion kits. Through cooperative efforts, migration vendors and Oracle offer a rich variety of migration products and streamline the process of migration to Oracle. For additional information on MTI, please contact infomti@oracle.com.

    New Media Alliance

    This should go to the current links with the New Media Alliance information.

    Joining the Business Alliance Programme

    Getting started with the Business Alliance Programme is straightforward. You'll find our contracts easy to understand - and one contract lets you do business with Oracle anywhere in the world. Once you have enrolled, your company can begin taking advantage of the Business Alliance Programme offerings, software discounts, technical support and services. You'll find that a strategic alliance with Oracle can pay off handsomely No other software company can offer you the benefits that Oracle can. For more information about the Oracle Business Alliance Programme, in the U.S. call 1-800-323-7355. For international inquiries, see Oracle Sales Offices. Ask for your Oracle territory manager to discuss establishing the business relationship that will make you the most successful. Coming Soon - our online application form! Watch for it!

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