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Public Teleconferences
Join CIO Executive Council members and participate in the following live teleconferences:
* Planning for Succession:
Models for IT Leadership Development, June 23
* Change Leadership at General Growth Properties: A
Pathways Leadership Development Seminar, June 25
* Managing Change: Centralizing Your IT Organization
July 29
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"Once one big deal closes, a sales team may have hit their number and [other customers] get kicked to the second tier," he added. It might be wiser, he said, to "be the first in line, have a good story and play to the weakness of Oracle, which is that they have so many people waiting until the end of the year."
Nailing down a huge influx of complicated licensing deals can be overwhelming, even for a company the size of Oracle, Colon said. "For the first time this year, I was seeing six-figure deals missing the quarter because there wasn't enough time. That never happened in the past."
However, Oracle's sales representatives on the whole have been hard bargainers recently, Ramirez said.
"With all the acquisitions [Oracle has made] a lot of times they realize, 'Where is the customer going to go? What are their options? Before, there was a lot more competition. That's the attitude. 'Where are you going to go? We've got you.'"
Colon agreed that Oracle's buying spree has changed the landscape, but from a different perspective. His firm is now seeing clients order nothing for several months, but then buying up a slew of products at once.
"I've never seen that take off as much as it has in the last six months," Colon said. "The positioning from Oracle from all these acquisitions is, 'Now is the time to bundle and get all these things together.'"
On the flip side, customers are being emboldened, he said. "I'm seeing people asking for higher discounts and an overall lower price because they're dealing with one vendor."
Copyright © 2008 IDG News Service. All rights reserved. IDG News Service is a trademark of International Data Group, Inc.
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