Major European MSP Partners Up with Oracle

DSP Managed Services, which claims to be the United Kingdom’s top provider of managed services, has joined the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) as a platinum member. But where exactly does Oracle fit in the managed services market? DSP and the OPN Specialized partner program provide some clues.

Oracle launched the OPN Specialized partner program in December 2009. And it’s safe to bet more OPN Specialized updates will surface at Oracle OpenWorld (Sept. 19-23, San Francisco).

Meanwhile, DSP offers a range of managed services, including:

In an interesting twist, DSP Managed Services blends open source and closed source solutions. For instance, the company uses GroundWork Open Source to monitor customers’ networks, applications and databases. GroundWork, as you may recall, introduced new MSP pricing earlier this week.

DSP focuses on several vertical markets, including financial services, business services, telco, retail, transportation, media & entertainment, higher education and oil & gas.

On the database front, Oracle says DSP Managed Services is one of the first UK solutions providers to achive OPN Specialized status for the Oracle Database 11g. To achieve specialization status, DSP Managed Services has demonstrated its expertise in delivering services specifically around Oracle Database 11g through competency development, business results and proven success, according to an Oracle statement.

Oracle OpenWorld

Meanwhile, it’s safe to expect a healthy number of MSPs to attend Oracle OpenWorld. At last year’s event, Oracle described how it offered service provider licensing to partners that wanted to pursue the SaaS market. MSPmentor expects several updates on that front during this year’s event.

Moreover, we’ll be watching to see if or how Sun legacy partners plan to join the OPN Specialized partner program. The old Sun partner program expires on October 15, 2010.

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