With its hardware business facing pressure from cloud companies such as Amazon on one side and the likes of Intel and AMD on the other, Oracle is reinvigorating its hardware business in India and is hoping the launch of a new processor will help revive its fortunes.

“Over the last six months, we’ve doubled our sales and pre-sales team members and we continue to grow that. Previously we had people only in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai. We now also have people in Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Pune. We also hired channel managers to revamp the hardware channel partners,” said Amit Malhotra, Head- Systems Business, Oracle India.

Oracle’s new M7 microprocessor, part of the Sparc product line from Sun Microsystems, comes with built-in security and encryption, which Oracle hopes will be relevant for new government projects such as smart cities where security is the top concern for the government. Sparc chips are typically used in high-end servers and compete with IBM’s Power servers.

Oracle has also readied a solution centre to showcase its hardware products at Bengaluru apart from revamping the existing one at Gurgaon. In addition to that, the company is also investing in equipment that the customer can take to their premise and test it in their environment.

“We also set up an ISV lab in Bengaluru where any independent software vendor can test their application and do performance testing in our lab for free. The lab helps them understand how they can migrate their applications to our platform,” Malhotra said.

Oracle’s hardware division has seen tough times since the time it was bought through Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems about five years ago. The software giant’s global hardware revenues were $1.1 billion, down 16 per cent in US dollars and down 10 per cent in constant currency in quarter ended November 30.

In July, Oracle even roped in former HP executive David Donatelli to oversee the software giant’s hardware portfolio.

“Traditionally, Oracle hardware was looked at something that is suitable only with Oracle applications. But now, apart from the traditional segments such as banking and finance and telecom, other segments of the market that didn’t consider us with as much keenness are also opening up to us such as State governments and manufacturing companies,” Malhotra said.

He said Oracle’s attempt to be a neutral platform that goes beyond supporting just Oracle applications is helping the company tap into government contracts where cheaper x86 processors from Intel and AMD have had a stronghold.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW