The ‘Sun’ has finally set. Eyed by many IT vendors, Sun Microsystems has finally fallen in the kitty of one of the largest software vendors, Oracle.
This has come as good news for the partners – both in India and abroad, who are upbeat about the numerous possibilities the alliance would offer them. Those who spoke to CT correspondents Kapil, Sandhya and Soma said they will have to look no further for hardware support platform for the Oracle database and other applications. Sun perfectly fits the bill.
On the vendor part, however, I see some ambiguity. While the channel directors of Oracle and Sun are responding to partner queries abroad, their Indian counterparts have suddenly gone into the silent mode. Partners big and small, including large system integrators and ISVs, complained over the last two days that they have no clarity over the India strategy or the roadmap ahead.
And this silent period comes at a time, when the channel community needs hand holding the most. Any question to the India offices meets with the same reply: This deal was brokered abroad. India was not involved, and we do not know anything. Now I can understand if such kind of ‘closely guarded secrets’ are not shared with the entire organization. But not sharing those even with the CXOs? Well, that does not go down well either with the IT Channel or with the press, who then directly correspondents with its international bureaux, or its contacts abroad.
The question why did the team at headquarter, not share such information with its teams overseas can be very embarrassing? The trend has changed now, with a few companies making global announcements, and ensuing that senior executives (local or from headquarter) are present on the day of the launch to talk to customers, partners and even employees.
In this case, till the Indian offices of Sun and Oracle offer some kind of clarity, ‘personal opinions’ will fly thick and fast, and partners will resort to their no comments because we do not have clarity’ kindda copies. And yet There is hope
Hope also at Channel Times that the community continues to participate with as much enthusiasm in our Partner Budget survey, as it has done it all its past endeavors. Hope, that more and more number of partners ‘click’ on the home page and log on to the survey.
And hope that together we make a difference of sorts.
So till next weekend .