Oracle appoints AST as local Advantage partner for Oracle technology track

Oracle South Africa`s has appointed AST as an Advantage Partner for the Oracle technology track.

Robert Swart, responsible for the Oracle partnership at AST, says as a technology track Advantage partner, AST will be focusing on the Oracle database, Oracle Application Server and Oracle`s development tools. "In this space, we currently have customers in many verticals, which include manufacturing, national and local government, healthcare, financial services, telecommunications and energy.

As the two big movers in the coming year, Swart cites Oracle Application Server and the Linux platform. "From an integration and web-enablement of customers` systems perspective, Oracle Application Server will show huge potential in the coming year. While there are numerous products on the market capable of allowing for integration and web enablement, most of the offerings available today have core competency in specific niche markets. Oracle Application Server encapsulates all of these niches and allows partners the ability to integrate on a single platform.

"AST also takes Linux very seriously and to show this, we`ve invested a great deal in the skills required for this space. With government openly supporting Open Source, it`s only a mater of time until Linux and J2EE dominates the market. Oracle`s leadership in the Linux space has also paved the road for partners like ourselves and has allowed us to carefully work out our strategy from an Open Source perspective.

"Whether or not we decide to deploy Linux and Open Source does depend on our customer`s needs and existing strategy, since we always place our customers` needs first."

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Karel van Niekerk, channel manager at Oracle South Africa says that Advantage Partner is the highest status an Oracle partner can achieve. "From Oracle`s perspective, it`s a way of acknowledging the commitment a partner has made to developing staff skills and testimony to the partner`s understanding of Oracle technology and its ability to integrate and develop custom applications according to the customer`s needs."

In terms of the criteria used to select Advantage partners, van Niekerk says the partner needs to have shown the highest level of professionalism and commitment to the Oracle brand, needs to have met specific sales targets set by Oracle and must possess customers in its portfolio that can be used as reference sites for Oracle worldwide.