Oracle announced on October 23, on the eve of Oracle AI World in Las Vegas, a $1 billion investment over four years aimed at supporting its partner network. This fund is intended to finance training programs, technical support, business development, and migration to the cloud, meaning IT infrastructures hosted and accessible remotely.
The announcement comes as companies multiply projects around artificial intelligence (AI), while having to adapt their existing infrastructures and applications. For Oracle, the challenge is to rely on its partners to develop and deploy these technologies to an increased number of clients. The investment is part of the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) program, which includes system integrators, software publishers, cloud and managed service providers, resellers, and consulting firms.
Training, development, and migration to the cloud
The funds are intended in particular to contribute to financing training and certifications, providing development and testing environments, as well as strengthening technical support. Oracle also plans resources for cloud migrations, along with programs encouraging joint commercial and marketing actions with the publisher.
The program also aims to develop solutions combining Oracle technologies with the skills and software of its partners. They will be able to design specialized applications, integration tools, and artificial intelligence agents, programs capable of chaining tasks in an automated manner.
The offers concerned cover several Oracle activities, including Fusion Applications, Oracle Database, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). The commercialization of partner solutions via Oracle Marketplace is also among the levers highlighted by the group. The aids will be accessible according to the applicable programs and eligibility conditions. Oracle does not specify in its announcement the breakdown of the billion dollars among the various programs, nor which categories of partners will benefit the most.
An increased role in transformation projects
Beyond developing new offers, Oracle intends to support its partners in carrying out their clients’ projects. The announced resources are intended to facilitate database modernization, application deployment, and cloud migrations. The publisher wishes to extend this support to the phase following production deployment. It cites in this regard Oracle AI Success Navigator, a tool designed to help partners support feature adoption and optimize the use of deployed solutions.
“Our partners enable us to extend our commercial coverage, increase our deployment capabilities, and bring their own innovations and investments to help clients meet evolving business needs,” says Mark Hura, president of Oracle’s global commercial operations.
The group also highlights the diversity of economic models in its network. According to Leah Yomtovian, senior vice president in charge of partner sales strategy and operations at Oracle, the programs are designed to offer greater flexibility to actors who develop, market, and deploy solutions based on the publisher’s technologies.
