HP Attacks Oracle-Sun With SAP Promotion

Another day, another attempt by a big hardware provider to attack the Oracle-Sun SPARC Server installed base. The latest assault involves Hewlett-Packard’s Migration In A Box effort, which is designed for SAP customers and partners that want to leap from Sun to HP hardware. Here are the details.

HP says that their migration package contains “hardware, software and services…that enables organizations to speed deployment of new applications and reduce the cost of managing the IT infrastructure.” The HP lineup involves:

• A choice of HP ProLiant, HP Integrity or HP BladeSystem servers
• Microsoft Windows, Linux and HP-UX 11i operating system options
• Migration planning and roadmap information

HP also continues to promote an HP Migration Center, a professional service that aids in the transitioning to HP solutions.

Take a closer look, and HP essentially is promoting an SAP server stack that competes with Sun SPARC servers running SAP or Oracle applications. The HP move arrives as thousands of SAP partners and customers converge at Sapphire, two SAP conferences held this week in North America and Europe. Separately, HP is working with Red Hat to further target Sun customers.

But alas, HP doesn’t seem to mention how channel partners can participate in the SAP application and Red Hat server pushes.

Meanwhile, HP isn’t the only hardware giant pursuing the Sun SPARC installed base. IBM has been running special promotions to convert SPARC customers over to Big Blue hardware and software.

Oracle Remains Upbeat

Still, it’s important to keep all these attacks in perspective. Oracle certainly isn’t showing any signs of panic. Instead, Oracle has indicated that acquiring Sun has been a solid move so far.

And Oracle Channel Chief Judson Althoff has launched a range of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized programs to help Oracle and Sun partners with their server and storage sales initiatives.

Additional reporting by Joe Panettieri. Sign up for The VAR Guy’s Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center; and via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; Twitter and VARtweet.