Content area
Full Text
BEA Systems needs the channel. Again. This time it says it means it. The software infrastructure company wants VARs at its side, reselling and implementing its products as it seeks to ascend to the next growth pinnacle: $3 billion in sales. Hmm. Haven't we heard this song and dance before?
VARs have some right to be skeptical. BEA is a company that infamously shot itself in the foot two years ago when it pulled an about-face on partners, letting its then-strong reseller channel languish as it pumped resources into its hungry direct sales force. Partners were relegated to influencer roles, or no roles at all. What's worse, BEA suffered the channel executive equivalent of the revolving door, most notably marked by the departure of rising star Rauline Ochs, who came to BEA from IBM in 2000 and spearheaded the creation of its Star Partner program, only to leave in April 2002.
In the end, BEA held its tight relationships with large ISVs, global integrators like Accenture, and OEMs such as Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, which account for large percentages of BEA's sales. In 2003, 34 percent of new WebLogic deployments were on HP hardware. But many smaller solution providers grew disenfranchised.
BEA executives today acknowledge their inattention. "In the past, the [partner] program has been an add-on to everything else we do," says Charles Ill, executive vice president of worldwide sales at BEA, who oversees the direct sales force and channel team. "And when business had downturns or we saw a constriction on expenses, the partner program was easy pickings because it was not the core business of BEA."
BEA played right into rival IBM's hands when it rebuffed overtures by some solution providers to sell the BEA product line, Ill concedes. The slight left many VARs with a bad taste in their mouths to this day. "There will be a community of partners [who] will be Doubting Thomases, who will say, 'Show me this time because you fooled me once,'" he says.
So what's changing now? There is some good news and some reasons for BEA to smile and pique VARs' attentions anew. BEA has had several profitable quarters. It is cash-flow positive. The company wrapped up fiscal year 2004 by reaching the...