TmaxSoft has its eyes on the €2bn market for databases in the UK and sees even more in the rest of Europe. With a sound foundation in its home market in Korea, it it now setting up channels and recruiting, and Oracle is its primary competitor target. 
TmaxSoft has its eyes on the €2bn market for databases in the UK and sees even more in the rest of Europe. With a sound foundation in its home market in Korea, it it now setting up channels and recruiting, and Oracle is its primary competitor target.
Joe Kim, head of the fledgling UK and European operation, is someone with 25 years of experience in IBM, and says there is a clear enterprise market to go after. “Customers want a second source, particularly when faced with Oracle's complexity of licensing and maintenance. We now want some hungry resellers to take these products to market.”
The primary product is the Tibero range of DBMS, but this expands into big data, in-memory systems and more as part of a wider portfolio, he explains. The primary markets would seem to be finance and so the UK is a logical place to start, but Germany and Benelux beckons. There are also some growth opportunities with telcos, and retail systems where he thinks Oracle has left some doors open. It looks like vertical market expertise is required from the resellers, though he is also looking at a two-tier model with a distributor or two.
With an Oracle Code Interface, and Oracle compliance in SQL terms, he says that many existing client programmes should work without needing to change anything. “Oracle has gaps – it is old technology, and the company is not what is used to be,” he says, acknowledging that there is probably increased interest after the latest round of licensing fees increases by the giant.
Another way he can build is through relationships with other vendors, particularly HP, with whom he is working on some large deals, and potentially also opening up the HP channel. There is no love lost between HP and Oracle at present.
He is starting small – there are no more than a handful of people in the company now, and this is expected to triple this year, building to perhaps 25-30 next year. Having identified 25-30 potential customers, he now needs a channel to press home the sales. Expansion further into Europe is the next stage, where he is already fielding enquiries from as far as Hungary. And it means all types of partners, especially ISVs, who can develop on the database and wider portfolio.
At this stage, the channel appointments are key and announcements are imminent on the first wave; “they just need to be hungry” and can be big or small; “We can offer all the tools, evaluation software and even share the maintenance so there is a long term return,” he says.
UK Sales director James Mills promises the channel access to the wider portfolio: “There are now 12-15 products in the UK,” he says and suggests potential channels check out the evaluation systems for testing and development work at http://technet.tmaxsoft.com/en/front/main/main.do