PARTNER FOCUS
Oracle ExadataMarketing Campaign
Steve McNickleVP Europe, cVidya
Steve McNickle is VP Europe for cVidya, an innovative provider of revenue intelligence solutions for telecom, media and entertainment service providers including AT&T, BT, Deutsche Telecom and Vodafone.
The company's product portfolio helps operators and service providers maximise margins, improve customer experience and optimise ecosystem relationships through revenue assurance, fraud and security management, sales performance management, pricing analytics, and inter-carrier services. cVidya has partnered with Oracle for more than a decade.
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Please could you tell us a little about cVidya's partnering history with Oracle, and expand on your Oracle Exastack accreditations?
"cVidya was established just over ten years ago and we've had a strong relationship with Oracle almost since
the very beginning. Through our Revenue Intelligence work with some of
the world's largest service providers we collect tremendous amounts of information, amounting to billions of records per day. We help our clients to collect, store and analyse that data to ensure that their end customers are getting
the best levels of service, are billed correctly, and are happy that they are on
the correct price plan. We have been an Oracle Gold level partner for seven years, and crucially just two months ago we were also accredited as Oracle Exastack Optimized for MoneyMap, our core Revenue Assurance solution. Very soon we also expect to be Oracle Exastack Optimized DRMap, our Data Retention solution."
What unique capabilities and customer benefits does Oracle Exastack add to your applications?
"Oracle Exastack enables us to deliver radical benefits to our customers. A typical mobile operator in
the UK might handle between 500 million and two billion call data record details daily. Each transaction needs to be validated, billed correctly and fraud checked. Because of
the enormous volumes involved, our clients demand scalable infrastructure that allows them to efficiently acquire, store and process all that data
within controlled cost, space and environmental constraints. We have proved that
the Oracle Exadata system can process data up to seven times faster and load it as much as 20 times faster than other standard best-of-breed server approaches. With
the Oracle Exadata Database Machine they can reduce their datacentre equipment from say,
the six or seven cabinets that they needed in
the past, down to just one. This dramatic simplification delivers incredible value to
the customer by cutting down enormously on all of their significant cost, space, energy, cooling and maintenance overheads."
"The Oracle Exastack Program has given our clients
the ability to switch their focus from reactive to proactive. Traditionally they may have spent 80 percent of their day processing, and just 20 percent enabling end customers to see advanced analytics, and avoiding issues before they occur. With our solutions and Oracle Exadata they can now switch that balance around entirely, resulting not only in reduced revenue leakage, but a far higher focus on proactive leakage prevention.
How has
the Oracle Exastack Program transformed your customer business?
"We can already see
the impact. Oracle solutions allow our delivery teams to achieve successful deployments, happy customers and self-satisfaction, and
the power of Oracle's Exa solutions is easy to measure in terms of their transformational ability. We gained our first sale into a major European telco by demonstrating
the major performance gains that would transform their business. Clients can measure
the ease of organisational change,
the early prevention of business issues,
the reduction in manpower required to provide protection and coverage across all their products and services, plus of course end customer satisfaction. If customers know that that service is provided accurately and that their bills are calculated correctly, then over time this satisfaction can be attributed to revenue intelligence and
the underlying systems which provide it. Combine this with
the further integration we have with
the other layers of
the Oracle stack, including
the telecommunications offerings such as NCC, OCDM and BRM, and
the result is even greater customer value—not to mention
the increased speed to market and
the reduced project risk."
What does
the Oracle Exastack community bring to cVidya, both in terms of general benefits, and also tangible new opportunities and partnerships?
"A great deal. We have participated in
the Oracle Exastack community heavily over
the past year, and have had lots of meetings with Oracle and our peers around
the globe. It brings us into contact with like-minded, innovative partners, who like us are not happy to just stand still and want to take fresh technology to their customer base in order to gain enhanced value. We identified three new partnerships in each of two recent meetings, and hope these will open up new opportunities, not only in areas that exactly match where we operate today, but also in some new associative areas that will expand our reach into new business sectors. Notably, thanks to
the Exastack community we were invited on stage at last year's Oracle OpenWorld conference. Appearing so publically with Oracle senior VP Judson Althoff elevated awareness and visibility of cVidya and has enabled us to participate in a number of other events with Oracle over
the past eight months. We've been involved in speaking opportunities, forums and exhibitions, providing us with invaluable opportunities that we wouldn't otherwise have got close to."
How has Exastack differentiated cVidya as an ISV, and helped you to evolve your business to
the next level?
"When we are selling to our core customer base of Tier 1 telecommunications providers, we know that they want more than just software. They want an enduring partnership that will last many years, they want innovation, and a forward thinking partner who knows how to guide them on where they need to be to meet market demand three, five or seven years down
the line. Membership of respected global bodies, such as
the Telemanagement Forum enables us to lead standard adherence in our area of business, giving us a lot of credibility, but Oracle is also involved in this forum with its own telecommunications portfolio, strengthening our position still further. When we approach CEOs, CTOs and CIOs at
the very largest Tier 1 operators, not only can we easily show them that our technology is fantastic, we can also talk about our strong partnership with Oracle, and our joint embracing of today's standards and tomorrow's innovation."
Where would you like cVidya to be in one year's time?
"We want to get all of our relevant products Oracle Exastack Optimized. Our MoneyMap Revenue Assurance solution is already Exastack Optimised, our DRMAP Data Retention Solution should be Exastack Optimised
within the next month, and our FraudView Fraud Management solution
within the next two to three months. We'd then like to extend our Oracle accreditation out to include other members of
the Oracle Engineered Systems family. We are moving into
the 'Big Data' space, and so we're obviously very keen to work closely with Oracle to conduct pilots, map new technologies onto Oracle Big Data platforms, and embrace and measure
the benefits of other Oracle systems, namely Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud,
the Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine and
the Oracle SPARC SuperCluster. We would also like to examine how
the Oracle Database Appliance might benefit our Tier 2 service provider customers. Finally, we'd also like to continue working with
the Oracle Communications Global Business Unit (CGBU), furthering our integration with Oracle billing products so that we are able to quickly deploy fraud solutions into Oracle's Engineered System stack, give operational benefits to our clients that are pre-integrated, more cost-effective, and can be rapidly deployed rapidly and producing benefits in three months, not nine months."
Chris Baker ,Senior Vice President, Oracle Worldwide ISV-OEM-Java Sales
Chris Baker is
the Global Head of ISV/OEM Sales responsible for working with ISV/OEM partners to maximise Oracle's business through those partners, whilst maximising those partners' business to their end users. Chris works with partners, customers, innovators, investors and employees to develop innovative business solutions using Oracle products, services and skills.
Firstly, could you please explain Oracle's current strategy for ISV partners, globally and in EMEA?
"Oracle customers use independent software vendor (ISV) applications to run their businesses. They use them to generate revenue and to fulfil obligations to their own customers. Our strategy is very straight-forward. We want all of our ISV partners and OEMs to concentrate on
the things that they do
the best – building applications to meet
the unique industry and functional requirements of their customer. We want to ensure that we deliver a best in class application platform so
the ISV is free to concentrate their effort on their application functionality and user experience We invest over four billion dollars in research and development every year, and we want our ISVs to benefit from all of that investment in operating systems, virtualisation, databases, middleware, engineered systems, and other hardware. By doing this, we help them to reduce their costs, gain more consistency and agility for quicker implementations, and also rapidly differentiate themselves from other application vendors. It's all about simplification because we believe that around 25 to 30 percent of
the development costs incurred by many ISVs are caused by customising infrastructure and have nothing to do with their applications. Our strategy is to enable our ISV partners to standardise their application platform using engineered architecture, so they can write once to
the Oracle stack and deploy seamlessly in
the cloud, on-premise, or in hybrid deployments. It's really important that architecture is
the same in order to keep cost and time overheads at a minimum, so we provide standardisation and an environment that enables our ISVs to concentrate on
the core business that makes them
the most money and brings them success."
How do you believe this strategy is helping
the ISVs to work hand-in-hand with Oracle to ensure that end customers get
the industry-leading solutions that they need?
"We work with our ISVs not just to help them be successful, but also to help them market themselves. We have something called
the 'Oracle Exastack Ready Program', which enables ISVs to publicise themselves as 'Ready' to run
the core software platforms that run on Oracle's engineered systems including Exadata and Exalogic. So, for example, they can become 'Database Ready' which means that they use
the latest version of Oracle Database and therefore can run their application without modification on Exadata or
the Oracle Database Appliance. Alternatively, they can become WebLogic Ready, Oracle Linux Ready and Oracle Solaris Ready which means they run on
the latest release and therefore can run their application, with no new porting work, on Oracle Exalogic. Those 'Ready' logos are important in helping ISVs advertise to their customers that they are using
the latest technologies which have been fully tested. We now also have Exadata Ready and Exalogic Ready programmes which allow ISVs to promote
the certification of their applications on these platforms. This highlights these partners to Oracle customers as having solutions that run fluently on
the Oracle Exadata Database Machine,
the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud or one of our other engineered systems. This makes it easy for customers to identify solutions and provides ISVs with an avenue to connect with Oracle customers who are rapidly adopting engineered systems. We have also taken this programme to
the next level in
the shape of 'Oracle Exastack Optimized' for partners whose applications run best on
the Oracle stack and have invested
the time to fully optimise application performance. We ensure that Exastack Optimized partner status is promoted and supported by press releases, and we help our ISVs go to market and differentiate themselves through
the use our technology and
the standardisation it delivers. To date we have had several hundred organisations successfully work through our Exastack Optimized programme."
How does Oracle's strategy of offering pre-integrated open platform software and hardware allow ISVs to bring their products to market more quickly?
"One of
the problems for many ISVs is that they have to think very carefully about
the technology on which their solutions will be deployed, particularly in
the cloud or hosted environments. They have to think hard about how they secure these environments, whether
the concern is, for example, middleware, identity management, or securing personal data. If they don't use
the technology that we build-in to our products to help them to fulfil these roles, they then have to build it themselves. This takes time, requires testing, and must be maintained. By taking advantage of our technology, partners will now know that they have a standard platform. They will know that they can confidently talk about implementation being
the same every time they do it. Very large ISV applications could once take a year or two to be implemented at an on-premise environment. But it wasn't just
the configuration of
the application that took
the time, it was actually
the infrastructure -
the different hardware configurations, operating systems and configurations of databases and middleware. Now we strongly believe that it's all about standardisation and repeatability. It's about making sure that our partners can do it once and are then able to roll it out many different times using standard componentry."
What actions would you recommend for existing ISV partners that are looking to do more business with Oracle and its customer base, not only to maximise benefits, but also to maximise partner relationships?
"My team, around
the world and in
the EMEA region, is available and ready to talk to any of our ISVs and to explore
the possibilities together. We run programmes like 'Excite' and 'Insight' to help us to understand how we can help ISVs with architecture and widen their environments. But we also want to work with, and look at, new opportunities - for example,
the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market or '
The Internet of Things'. Over
the next few years, many millions, indeed billions of devices will be collecting massive amounts of data and communicating it back to
the central systems where ISVs will be running their applications.
The only way that our partners will be able to provide a single vendor 'end-to-end' solution is to use Oracle integrated systems at
the back end and Java on
the 'smart' devices collecting
the data – a complete solution from device to data centre. So there are huge opportunities to work closely with our ISVs, using Oracle's complete M2M platform, to provide
the infrastructure that enables them to extract maximum value from
the data collected. If any partners don't know where to start or who to contact, then they can contact me directly at
[email protected] or indeed any of our teams across
the EMEA region. We want to work with ISVs to help them to be as successful as they possibly can through simplification and speed to market, and we also want all of
the top ISVs in
the world based on Oracle."
What opportunities are immediately opened to new ISV partners joining
the OPN?
"As you know OPN is very, very important. New members will discover a huge amount of content that instantly becomes accessible to them. They can access a wealth of no-cost training and enablement materials to build their expertise in Oracle technology. They can download Oracle software and use it for development projects. They can help themselves become more competent by becoming part of a true community and uncovering new opportunities by working with Oracle and their peers in
the Oracle Partner Network. As well as publishing massive amounts of information on OPN, we also hold our global Oracle OpenWorld event, at which partners play a huge role. This takes place at
the end of September and
the beginning of October in San Francisco. Attending ISV partners have an unrivalled opportunity to contribute to elements such as
the OpenWorld / OPN Exchange, at which they can talk to other partners and really begin thinking about how they can move their businesses on and play key roles in a very large ecosystem which revolves around technology and standardisation."
Finally, are there any other messages that you would like to share with
the Oracle ISV community?
"
The crucial message that I always like to reinforce is architecture, architecture and architecture!
The key opportunities that ISVs have today revolve around standardising their architectures so that they can confidently think: “I will I be able to do exactly
the same thing whenever a customer is looking to deploy on-premise, hosted or in
the cloud”.
The right architecture is critical to being competitive and to really start changing
the game. We want to help our ISV partners to do just that; to establish standard architecture and to seize
the opportunities it opens up for them. New market opportunities like M2M are enormous - just look at how many devices are all around you right now. We can help our partners to interface with these devices more effectively while thinking about their entire ecosystem, rather than just
the piece that they have traditionally focused upon. With standardised architecture, we can help people dramatically improve their speed, reach, agility and delivery of enhanced customer satisfaction and value all
the way from
the Java side to their centralised systems. All Oracle ISV partners must take advantage of these opportunities, which is why Oracle will continue to invest in and support them."
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Gergely Strbik is Oracle Hardware and Software Product Manager for Avnet in Hungary. Avnet Technology Solutions is an OracleValue Added Distributor focused on
the development of
the existing Oracle channel. This includes
the recruitment and enablement of Oracle partners as well as driving deeper adoption of Oracle's technology and application products
within the IT channel.
"
The main business benefits of ODA for our customers and partners are scalability, flexibility, a great price point for
the high performance delivered, and
the easily configurable embedded Linux operating system. People welcome a lower point of entry and
the ability to grow capacity on demand as their business expands."
"Marketing and selling
the ODA requires another way of thinking because it is an appliance. We have to transform
the ways in which our partners and customers think from buying hardware and software independently to buying complete solutions. Successful early adopters and satisfied customer reactions will certainly help us to sell
the ODA. We will have more experience with
the product after
the first deliveries and installations—end users need to see
the power and benefits for themselves."
"Our typical ODA customers will be those looking for complete solutions from a single reseller partner who is also able to manage
the appliance. They will have enjoyed using Oracle Database but now want a new product that is able to unlock new levels of performance. A higher proportion of potential customers will come from our existing Oracle base, with around 30% from new business, but we intend to evangelise
the ODA on
the market to see how we can change this balance as all our customers adjust to
the concept of 'Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together'.
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