Channel mulls over Oracle-Pillar merger

Acquisition should spell good news for Pillar's partners, onlookers claim

Oracle's acquisition of Larry Ellison-backed storage vendor Pillar Data Systems has been greeted with a lack of surprise by the channel.

The software giant ann­ounced plans to acquire SAN specialist Pillar late last month, adding that it was "critical for Oracle to own a proprietary storage asset" and reduce its reliance on Sun's SAN OEM partners.

In a statement, Oracle's executive vice president John Fowler said the deal was also part of the firm's plans to create a storage portfolio that is optimised to run its software.

"Customers can optimise the value of their Oracle applications, database, middleware and operating system software by running [it] on Oracle's storage solutions," explained Fowler.

Prior to the deal being announced, the two firms already shared a link in the form of Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, who owns a majority stake in Pillar.

For this reason, Chris James, EMEA marketing director at virtualisation vendor Virtual Instruments, said news of an Oracle-Pillar tie-up was almost inevitable.

"It was always almost impossible for the Pillar guys to introduce the company without mentioning Larry," said James. "At least now they can say they are owned by Oracle, [although] I think this is more of a consolidation than a buyout."

This view is shared by Phil Jones, chief technology officer at storage systems integrator Shoden Data Systems.

"We are seeing a lot of large vendors acquiring smaller ones so they can become more self-sufficient, rather than invest in R&D," he said.

"Also, Pillar and Oracle have been closely linked for a long time, so it is a deal that is unlikely to have come as much of a surprise."

Storage VAR Krome Tech­nologies recently joined Pillar's partner programme. Rupert Mills, chief technology officer at the firm, claimed the deal is good news for Pillar partners.

"We worked with Equal­Logic before it joined Dell, and that deal really accelerated the development of the EqualLogic product road map, and the same could happen to Pillar," he said.

Having the might of an entity the size of Oracle behind it could also give Pillar's brand awareness a boost, according to Mills.

"The Pillar technology is great and one of the main reasons we decided to partner with the company," he added. "With Oracle behind it, it would be good to see the firm doing more sales and marketing activities."