Hungary is one of Eastern Europe's leading hi-tech and software development centres, with a software industry worth approximately (eur)500 million. Oracle has around 160 ISV partners based in the country and it's the job of Peter Hauk to manage the working relationships with them, we asked him to tell us more:

ISV News: What are your job responsibilities within Oracle Hungary?
Peter Hauk: I am responsible for working and dealing with our directly managed partners and all ISVs within Hungary. It's my job to understand their organizations, their decision making methods and to help them to plan technology migration and development processes, create business plans and organize events. I am also responsible for maintaining the solution catalogues, and partner solution maps.

ISVN: What is your experience in dealing with partners?
PH: In my experience we have a very good relationship with our partners, it's a very successful relationship. The most important thing is that they understand the Oracle value proposition. We have regular meetings with key partners who are managed directly, and we have a partner day every quarter when we introduce new technologies and new product versions, as well as events and offers. We also have regular web-conferences. We regularly have socializing event with them.

ISVN: How is the Hungarian Alliance & Channel function organised in relation to ISVs?
PH: We have dedicated persons who take responsibility for the relationships with each ISV partners. There is no partner in Hungary, which does not have a direct Oracle relationship of some type, either an Oracle person is responsible for them or the value added distributor is responsible. We have approximately 160 partners in Hungary, and about 30 of those are managed directly by Oracle people, with the rest managed by a value added distributor.

We established Professional Communities, which is an excellent forum for getting information about new technologies and also useful for Oracle to get know more details about partner's projects. We can also influence the strategic technology decisions and encourage them to adopt new technologies.

ISVN: How would you characterise the ISV landscape in Hungary?
PH: There is a huge difference between the different markets. Some ISVs work in a very narrow market here but others are able to get larger international projects. Finance and Telco sectors adopted Oracle technology at the beginning of 90's. They are in the 2nd investment cycle today using IT on higher level. These project are more businesss critical than earlier.

The agriculture industry here needs to be developed quite a lot, but logistics and manufacturing are much better as well as high tech and retail. We have good partners in almost every sector, but some markets are not yet ready to adopt Oracle technology.

ISVN: What is driving the take-up of Oracle products in Hungary?
PH: In the past year it has been very important for organisations to have the 10g programs, such as Database and Application server. Previously a lot of partners didn't want to upgrade from 9i to 10g because it was only the first version of 10g but now we have the terminal release and it's been very important for them to adopt that.

ISVN: In what ways is Oracle Hungary helping local ISVs to grow their business?
PH: We know which industries are most in need of Oracle based solutions and we are able to use our resources to do a lot of marketing and cold calling to generate strong leads for our ISV partners. We manage these opportunities very well and deliver them to our partners. This is a big help to them because usually they will not have the kind of resources necessary to cold call hundreds of companies. We filter the entire industry for them, it's one of the ways we can help shorten their sales cycle. We regularly have lead management meeting with our Partners.

ISVN: Have you implemented any local initiatives aimed at ISVs?
PH: We have very good education offers, every year we put together educational projects for our partners. We put together the marketing plans, the business plans, the resources they need. Oracle partner network is a great point of access for them to download the new technologies, they are able to access our infrastructure, to get closer to their business.

ISVN: How would you summarise the benefits that ISVs can gain from working with Oracle Hungary?
PH: We can put together the marketing plans, business plans and the other resources they need. The Oracle Partner Network is a great resource for ISVs because it provides an easy point of access to our infrastructure and get closer to our business, it also means they can easily get the newest technologies. Here in the Oracle Hungary offices we have great presentation facilities which they can use to present their Oracle based solutions to potential clients

ISVN: Whom should an ISV contact if they were interested in working with you?
Peter Hauk
Tel: +36 1 224 1748
Peter.Hauk@oracle.com