Oracle attempted to quell channel fears regarding the integration of PeopleSoft last week, claiming there will be minimal change for partners.
Oracle, which finally agreed an acquisition price of $10.3bn for PeopleSoft in December last year after months of wrangling, announced at the official launch of the "new company" that it will merge the two vendor channel programmes, although it admitted specific details are sketchy.
Charles Phillips, president of Oracle, said: "We will converge our channel programme with the PeopleSoft Connect programme and synchronise the terms and conditions of the two schemes over the next few months.
"For the partner it means more products and one relationship that's simplified."
Phillips said that because consulting is only 15 per cent of Oracle's business, the channel plays a "major role". Following the merger, Oracle has 14,000 partners globally.
Greg Carlow, managing director of Oracle reseller Repton, said: "This won't have much effect on us. Oracle isn't an easy vendor to work with, but it is wise to expand its reseller base.
"It will get more resellers in the SME space now, because the greater the numbers of Oracle promoters, the better for it."
Oracle said the development of current products will continue as planned until 2006, after which all of its developers will focus on Project Fusion, which aims to merge elements of Oracle, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards products into a single application suite.
However, the news hasn't all been bright for Oracle, which announced 5,000 job cuts following the PeopleSoft acquisition.
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