SPs give thumbs-up to Oracle-Sun deal

New Delhi: The news of Oracle's decision to purchase Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion has been creating ripples in the industry, and the solution providers (SPs) in the country are also not untouched by the effect.

SPs across the country opined that with the acquisition Oracle would have to create clear strategies for their server operating system and hardware business.

Having merged with Sun, Oracle will now offer a combination of hardware as well as software business that will give rise to the intense competition with IBM.Though SPs accorded that it was too early to comment on the impact of the deal on their business, they agreed that the acquisition would put Oracle and Sun ahead of its competitors.

Commenting on the matter, Sanjiv Bhavnani of New Delhi-based Visesh Infotecnics said that though it is too early to comment on the matter, and till the strategies of Oracle are put in place, SPs will have to wait and watch.“However, the SPs of Oracle and Sun will benefit from this deal as they would enjoy a better market position in comparison to IBM, therefore they should be excited about the announcement,” he opined.

Sudhir Kothari of Kolkata-based Embee Software informed that though at this stage it was too early to comment on the impact of the deal on Indian market, it was bound to heat up the competition between the majors in the space. “This deal will certainly have an impact on the business of IBM partners and the competition will become intense as IBM is in the same domain. Sun will now target to increase the market place as Oracle is also in database and application business zone,” said Kothari.

Replying to the query on the difference in pricing due to new deals, Kothari stated that there would not be much difference in the pricing of the products, however, the deal would certainly help the direct partners of Sun and Oracle as they can now bundle the hardware and application and this would increase their marketshare.

“The deal is anytime advantageous for SPs who are directly engaged with Sun Microsystems and Oracle and they should be excited about the deal as they would get better product packages to offer to their customers. SPs who were just selling Oracle and were independent of hardware will now be able to sell a packaged solution,” Kothari added.

According to Forrester estimate, the market size of IT products and services of India is $34 billion and the acquisition would help Oracle to address newer segments by increasing the share of the overall enterprise software services market.

Edward Jeevan of Bangalore-based Binary Systems opined, “Definitely, there will be good competition in the market but I don't think that there will be any difference in the pricing of the products. It would lead to stiff competition and the SPs will provide solutions that are more packaged and will give value to the customers.”

The deal would be beneficial for direct partners of Sun and Oracle as they would be able to offer better packages to customers. Ranjan Chopra of Delhi-based Team Computer opined that the deal between Sun and Oracle would not be very good for products like Java and Open Source software as the focus on them may lose its grip. He added that there may not be much impact on the SPs at SMB space but it would affect partners at enterprise level like Wipro.

Most SPs feel that in the initial stage of the acquisition there is bound to be turbulence. However, it will take almost a year to get the strategies operational at the ground level and to witness the consequences of the mega deal.