Welcome from Bertram Mandel

Welcome to a brand new bi-monthly Oracle newsletter for independent software vendors operating in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

On the last Monday of every other month, we will bring you the latest news and event schedules from Oracle and show you the advantages that you can gain by developing your software applications on an Oracle technology platform.

The 3,600+ EMEA ISV members of the Oracle PartnerNetwork have already discovered the benefits of Oracle's market-leading technology and of being an Oracle partner. With our help, you too can enjoy these benefits.

Oracle has extensive resources to help you to develop leading solutions and take them to market. We have a dedicated Product Technology Services division who can help you at every step of the development or migration process. We have Partner Development Funds available to help you manage your investment in Oracle. Our extensive experience of working with ISVs means that we know the pressures you are facing. We can help you overcome those pressures and work with you to build your business.

For those of you who would like to consider developing on Oracle, there has never been a better time to investigate what we have to offer. Firstly, you have an extremely wide choice of operating systems, enabling you to cater to an equally wide range of customers. We are fully committed to Unix, Windows and Linux, the latter option meaning that you can bring a resilient Oracle-based application cost-effectively into those market sectors (public and commercial) where Linux is growing rapidly in popularity.

Secondly, our world-leading Database and Web-Application Server offer superior integration, meaning that you can rely on one vendor for all your infrastructural needs. A pre-integrated database and application server mean you spend less time and money on development, deployment and support so you can bring your application to market faster and serve customers better. Our wide range of licensing options means you can choose a licence type that best suits your market and budget.

Thirdly, with Oracle you can easily and cost-effectively expand your market reach by taking advantage of our extreme scalability. It may surprise you to learn that Oracle is on top of the wish list of companies in the European SME sector, according to a recent study by Trend Research. That's in addition to the leading market share Oracle enjoys in the Enterprise space. The newly-launched Oracle Standard Edition One brings the price of Oracle's Database to under €170 per user - a highly attractive offer specifically for SMEs. There is a huge demand for Oracle-based applications out there waiting to be exploited.

At the top end of the market, take advantage of Oracle Grid Computing - the next evolution in low-cost enterprise computing. This allows you to deploy massively scalable and reliable applications to corporate customers at a fraction of the cost of traditional mainframe or MPP systems leveraging the latest in cluster and blade computing infrastructure. Look out for more about Grid Computing in the next issue.

Becoming an Oracle partner doesn't just mean you get the advantage of world-leading technology. Our whole organisation is geared towards partnering. ISV partnerships are a discrete, critical business program running through the whole of Oracle EMEA, in every country, from senior management downwards. You will be hearing from other senior EMEA executives about the importance of ISVs in future issues and learn about our ISV teams, who are working with ISVs in every country in EMEA.

The programmatic foundation for partnering is the Oracle PartnerNetwork, which offers a wide variety of benefits to ISVs, from joint marketing and PR initiatives to funding for technical and market development - and these benefits increase as you progress up the scale from OPN Member to Oracle Certified Partner and finally to Oracle Certified Advantage Partner. You can also take advantage of our excellent relationships with the leading hardware vendors and systems integrators to expand your own partnerships for mutual growth.

I sincerely hope that you will find this newsletter interesting and that it will whet your appetite to find out more about what Oracle has to offer. Please do get in touch with any questions or comments. We are waiting to hear from you!

Bertram Mandel
Senior Director, Alliances & Channels, Oracle Europe, Middle East and Africa