Oracle’s mid market packages offer the same functionality as its high end solutions and use the same code base but are packaged and priced for the small to mid cap market.
Application Server Standard Edition One costs $4,995 per processor, up to a maximum of two processors, which puts it at half the price of the enterprise level offering. Organizations can opt for named user pricing at $149 per user for a minimum of five users.
The package includes the application server middleware platform, Oracle’s web server and portal technology and is designed for rapid implementation with features such as a pre-built portal with base level content management and publishing capabilities.
With this launch Oracle now has mid market packages across both its technology and applications lines of business, while also covering the main elements within the tech business. In the database space it offers Oracle Standard Edition One, and E-Business Suite Special Edition in the application area.
Oracle is aggressively tackling the mid market space and is claiming success. Stein Surlien, vp of alliances and channels, said 40% of Oracle’s business now comes from the SME sector and during the last fiscal year sales of Special Edition showed an incremental growth rate of 150% on a quarter on quarter basis, while the growth rate for Standard Edition was 300%.
The percentages are high but they have to be viewed in the context of the standing start for both packages. However it is clear Oracle is gaining traction. The company said 3,500 customers were using one or both of the mid market edition packages during the last fiscal year.
Oracle is targeting the whole of the small to mid market but sees ten to 500 employee companies as its sweet spot and the 40% of its business that comes from the SME market is drawn from this sector. Within this 75% comes from ten to 100 employee companies. Citing market research figures Oracle said there are 27m companies in EMEA and 97% of them have less than 500 employees and represent 70% of the workforce and 60% of the European IT spend.
Oracle’s mid market strategy is to reduce the amount of risk faced by organizations, offer affordable packages and complete solutions. The company says it can offer a complete package for less than 100 million euros, that includes software, hardware, implementation, training and support and can be deployed in 20 days, all via its partner channel.
It is focusing heavily on price and admitted that it deliberately priced the mid market database offering to undercut Microsoft when it lopped 20% off the price earlier this year.
