The Cube - Oracle Open World 2011 - Chris Hanchin, Oracle, with John Furrier and Dave Vellante The last two years have been a transition period for not just Oracle, but Oracle’s partners as well. As Oracle embraces the pre-configured, pre-engineered appliance model, partners that once made money helping customers integrate Oracle’s various components have been forced to find a new way to support customers. But most Oracle partners are “on board,” according to Chris Hanchin, Director of Enterprise Solutions Group Program Partner Sales at Oracle. Hanchin went live inside theCUBE with Wikibon Chief Analyst Dave Vellante live from the floor of Oracle OpenWorld 2011 at the Muscone Center in San Francisco. Said Hanchin: I just think in general when you talk to our typical reseller partner, they’re going to market in a different way. Where they typically move some hardware and make some money on margins and maintain that for awhile and they could sell some software and they can make some money there, I think what they’re recognizing, as Oracle is, is that based on our engineered solutions there’s more of an opportunity to solve business problems for the customer. I think today based on the fact that they’re trying to provide a solutions-based consultative sale where they can recognize more revenue and deeper margins, I think that they’re on board. I’ve talked to several partners while here and they’re very excited about it. Hanchin also discussed the value of a pre-engineered appliance like Exadata. “It’s a game-changing technology. Coming from the partner side, it’s provided a new entry level for our partners on both the hardware and software sides. So its great innovation.” Added Hanchin, “From an infrastructure point there are a lot of changes going on. But I think the great thing is when yu take the exadata box and you take a look at our backup and recovery solutions, it’s a great mix of pulling all of our technologies together.”