SANTA ANA, Calif., Sept. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Renowned for connecting leading technology vendors with today’s SMB resellers, Ingram Micro Inc., (NYSE:IM) today announced it will provide integrated marketing, sales, technical support and logistics support and services to Oracle, the world’s largest enterprise software company. The agreement marks one of the first broadline distribution engagements for Oracle.
Under the new partnership, Ingram Micro will source the software giant’s complete lineup of technology products including the award-winning Oracle Database, and Oracle(R) Fusion Middleware to its more than 35,000 resellers across the U.S. Initial recruitment efforts will focus on the distributor’s unparalleled customer communities including VentureTech, SMB Alliance, GovEd Alliance and Ingram Micro Services Network. As with other Ingram Micro distribution agreements, further expansion of the vendor relationship will be determined by ongoing market analysis and customer demand.
“Like many of our vendor partners, Oracle is a renowned market leader who is eager to extend access of its technology to resellers focused on SMB and Mid-market opportunities,” said Paul Bay, senior vice president, vendor management, Ingram Micro North America. “Our proven data mining skills, reseller recruitment and marketing efforts and overall customer engagement capabilities are consistently moving the needle for our technology partners including legacy brand names like Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft as well as, emerging channel partners like Juniper, VMWare and F5 Networks. Oracle’s technology represents new opportunities and revenue streams for our customer base and we are eager to grow our partnership with them.”
“Ingram Micro has the global depth, reseller communities, and overall industry experience we need to grow our footprint within the SMB and Mid- market,” said Judson Althoff, vice president, Global Platform and Distribution Alliances, Oracle. “Their history and expertise in channel engagement make our new relationship a key part of our database and middleware distribution strategy.”
Ingram Micro offers a number of valuable, and in some cases proprietary, business resources, training and education tools that differentiate the company and help drive reseller marketing and sales engagement efforts for its vendor partners. For example:
* Cross-trained, solution-centric pre- and post-sales technical support
* Customized marketing capabilities
* Data-mining and customer profiling tools
* New customer event planning and recruitment teams
* Financial services offerings including leasing and end-user financing
* Field deployable engineers and product specialists
* Software licensing help desk
* Solution Center for demonstrations and training
* Vertical market expertise, tools and training seminars focused on CE,
Digital Home, Healthcare, and Finance.
