Opening new doors with Open Source

“In the middleware space with JBoss we are probably a couple of years behind Linux in terms of maturity. The interesting thing is we are not just an application server in the JBoss space, we move right up through the stack into Service Oriented Architecture space so there is a lot of integration opportunity there for business partners.”

Open Source vendors such as Red Hat don’t expect the channel to venture into Open Source territory unassisted. Red Hat Australia offers a three-tier partnership program. Red Hat Ready partners gain access to Red Hat’s online portal as well as discounts in areas such as training. The Advanced Business Partner program features a Red Hat stream and a JBoss stream. To qualify, channel partners need to commit to a level of business with Red Hat and have a number of skills-certified engineers on staff. Advanced Business Partners also receive preferential treatment in areas such as sales leads. Red Hat Australia’s Certified Services Partner program allows channel players to work with Red Hat from a skills transfer perspective in their first engagements, to help them get up and running.

While working with Open Source can offer a range of new business opportunities, it can also be a form of risk mitigation. Unlike proprietary software foundations, if channel players encounter a bug in the Open Source stack they’re not left at the mercy of one major software vendor, said Shane Owenby, Oracle Asia Pacific’s senior director of Linux and Open Source. While Oracle’s offerings run on traditional operating systems such as Windows and Solaris, the software giant also offers customers its own Oracle Enterprise Linux distribution – derived from Red Hat Enterprise. Customers can run Oracle and other applications on Oracle Enterprise Linux, which Oracle supports under its Unbreakable Linux program.

“Traditionally the Oracle channel has not cared about the operating system, but that is starting to change based on the interest my team is seeing all around Asia Pacific. The channel guys see now that we can provide
a full stack solution,” Owenby said.

“If you are going to go out there and be the average Joe Blow flogger of software or hardware, you’ve got a thousand people to differentiate yourself from. From what I’ve seen, the partners that have been successful in Open Source have developed an angle. When you’re dealing with the flexibility of Open Source software, you can build on a base such as Oracle Enterprise Linux. You can easily add a special device driver or a special configuration for a file system, whatever it is
that your customer needs.”