Oracle aims for the mid-market

Oracle has announced new customers and partnerships in the mid-market business applications space - an effort some experts framed as a pre-emptive strike against similar news expected later this week from SAP.

The company named a handful of new customers - including companies from the manufacturing, insurance, high-tech and publishing sectors - it has won over during the last few months with its Oracle Database Standard Edition One. The product is a version of the company's enterprise database software package that it has tailored and priced specifically to appeal to small to mid-size businesses and to departments of larger organisations.

Oracle - which defines its mid-market customers by the size of their software projects, not their revenues - said its E-Business Suite Special Edition, an offering that comes with pre-configured business process tools for operations such as inventory management, purchasing and telephone sales, also continues to do well with mid-size customers.

The company introduced 10 new channel partners it has recruited to help sell its products and services into the sector, where such relationships are considered crucial for connecting with smaller customers. Among the new channel partners introduced by Oracle were BizTech, Corporate Solutions, Dataweb, Nascent and SOA Software.

In making the announcements, Oracle took direct aim at SAP, which is expected to detail its latest mid-market plans at its Sapphire conference which begins tomorrow in Boston. Both Oracle and SAP have been pushing hard to increase their presence in the mid-market for years as demand for their powerful business applications has slowed among larger companies and increased among smaller concerns.

Frank Prestipino, vice president of marketing at Oracle, said: "We compete and win [against SAP] in the mid-market and have examples of where we've replaced them at long time customers of theirs. When people in this market dig deep with SAP they see it's too much to handle, and that's where we come in."

Prestipino said the most important element of Oracle's news is likely to be the string of partnerships. Mid-market customers continue to place nearly as great an emphasis on the quality of the software vendor's channel suppliers as they do on anything else, he said.

Industry watchers observed that competition between Oracle and SAP will only become more intense down the road. SAP is expected to make major mid-market strategy announcements at Sapphire, which could include a deal with another IT behemoth such as Microsoft. Oracle has a well-regarded distribution deal for database software with hardware giant Dell, and SAP may look to trump that relationship in the eyes of potential customers, experts said. SAP has its own deal with Dell to distribute server software.

Matt Hines writes for CNET News.com