Oracle Corp and Dell Computer Corp are teaming up in an alliance that will see the formation of a business unit to work on direct sales of Oracle-based products on Dell hardware to enterprises. The unit will be manned by Oracle and Dell staff, initially a team of around eight engineers and marketing staff, at Oracle’s headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. The unit will sell a combination of Oracles information management software running on Dell PowerEdge servers, and Dell plans to offer customized hardware pre-loaded with optimized Oracle software, likely to be available in four to five months. The result should be higher performance and lower costs, say the two. Dell has pioneered the direct selling approach in the PC marketplace, and hopes the Oracle deal will supplement its sales to large companies. Oracle is keen to benefit from markets in which Dell is strong, such as the government sector.
