The Critical Role of ISVs in the Era of Cloud Transformation

Companies today are in the middle of a generational shift in computing that is as significant as the shift from mainframes to personal computers. This shift to the cloud has been underway since the emergence of SaaS companies more than 15 years ago, and ISVs have been fundamental to the business growth all along.

As we bear witness to this shift, we’re seeing signs that ISVs play a critical role as enterprise applications move to the cloud. 

One of the vendors leading the charge in this transformation to the cloud with its applications, platform and infrastructure services–and, of course, people–is Oracle. But Oracle isn’t doing it alone. As mentioned in a keynote during last month’s Oracle OpenWorld, the other complement of people helping pave the way are Oracle’s ISVs, especially those using Java technology.

Oracle’s ISV Strategy

Oracle’s ISV strategy is simple: to help our partners architect, deploy and scale their commercial applications in the cloud. This is done through solution development within a vibrant ecosystem–an ecosystem that’s dynamic and bilateral with ISVs. Couple that with a scalable go-to-market strategy, and ISVs can get to market quickly, at scale, via the cloud.

Solid Traction Across SaaS, PaaS & IaaS

Software vendors and commercial application providers are leveraging Oracle Cloud Platform–including infrastructure and platform services–to build, deploy and scale their applications in the cloud.

ISVs are leveraging Oracle IaaS and Oracle PaaS to deliver their own enterprise-grade software as a service (SaaS) solutions to their customers. On top of that, a large number of ISVs are building value-added extensions to Oracle SaaS applications, and delivering these to joint customers. It’s a win-win situation for everyone, and, as a result, we’re seeing strong traction across Oracle SaaS, Oracle PaaS and Oracle IaaS.

What’s in It for Partners?

Oracle is helping software partners move to the cloud by providing them access to complementary trial accounts for Oracle Cloud Platform and Oracle SaaS. This allows ISV partners to evaluate these services for their own unique requirements and use cases.

Oracle also offers an Online Cloud Assessment (OCA) tool at no charge that is of tremendous value to ISVs. The OCA is a simple and confidential online self service tool that will help partners assess their cloud maturity and readiness. The tool evaluates multiple dimensions of a partner’s cloud strategy–products, sales and marketing, operations, customer success and technology. It also instantly generates a personalized report that outlines where improvements might be made and gives advice to accelerate your cloud strategy in those areas.

In addition, ISVs can take advantage of direct technical assistance from Oracle Cloud specialists and architects, and attend regional workshops and labs. There are also specific commercial models and go-to-market programs designed for partners–namely, the Oracle Cloud Marketplace.

We want our ISV partners to build on their successes in the enterprise with Oracle and to help them drive profitability.

All the best,

Dan Miller

Dan Miller is Senior Vice President, ISV & OEM at Oracle. See Dan’s recent Oracle OpenWorld 2015 interview with theCUBE. Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly and are part of The VAR Guy's annual platinum sponsorship.