ECM vendor Vignette may expand Australian channel

Enterprise content management software vendor Vignette has made some changes to its global partner program and hinted at channel expansion in Australia.

Chris Mollo, the Australia-based director of Vignette's Asia-Pacific partner program, said Vignette had just six partners on its Australian partner program but may sign more.

"We have seen a significant pick-up in business here for the last six to nine months. We have over-achieved our objectives for the last nine months," Mollo said.

The six program partners are Alphawest, KAZ Group, HotHouse, Eclipse Computing, EDS, Bearing Point and NZ company Sytec. The company also works here with BEA, IBM and Sun, Mollo said.

Mark Belles, vice-president of Vignette's global strategic partner program, said the company would now pay partners which referred "opportunities" to Vignette up to 10 percent commission and another 10 percent to close the transaction with Vignette. "We are extremely confident we have a full breadth of product now," Belles said.

Since the company made Australia-specific changes to its packaging and pricing in January 2003, sales of Vignette's 10 or so ECM offerings had improved, Mollo said. "We expect a lot of improvement in licensing sales," Mollo said. "We are putting in more account executives and brought in a partner manager from Tower Technology."

Vignette hit the news in the new year with its $161 million acquisition of Sydney service provider Tower Technology, via specially-formed subsidiary Copper Australia.

Belles said that Forrester Research figures suggested the global ECM market could be growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 23 percent.