Azul, the only company 100% focused on Java, today announced a significant expansion of its global channel program, highlighting substantial year-over-year growth in partner engagement and revenue contribution. This growth is due in large part to the demand for licensing and pricing expertise aligned to IT Asset Management services, and specific migration advisory engagements as customers seek alternatives to Oracle Java. Azul’s channel partners contributed 44% of the company’s new and upsell bookings for the first half of its fiscal year 2025 and were responsible for a 50% increase in inbound opportunities.
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“Going forward, we’re focused on bringing migration partners into our own service engagements as well as collaborating with partners early in their advisory license engagements to provide pivotal recommendations, all through a more aggressive channel-centric sales model”
Program Expansion to Meet Strong Demand
In the last year, Azul’s channel expansion gained traction globally with 15 new strategic partnerships, including key distributors in Australia, Middle East, South Africa and India. Azul also expanded its own presence in Paris to oversee partnerships in France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
This past year has been pivotal in the Java licensing world due to the surge in businesses seeking cost-effective and flexible alternatives to Oracle Java SE. Customers have turned to independent channel partners to provide Oracle Java discovery and inventory services, license analysis and recommendations for OpenJDK alternatives, such as Azul Platform Core. Per Azul’s recent report, Oracle Java Usage, Pricing & Migration Survey and Report, the shift away from Oracle Java is driven by escalating licensing fees, unpredictable cost structures and greater demand for open-source solutions. Enterprises across industries are prioritizing cost containment, vendor independence and long-term support, making OpenJDK-based offerings a compelling choice.
By partnering with Azul, channel resellers and distributors can tap into the strong momentum behind the use of OpenJDK distributions and offer customers trusted Java solutions that meet their performance, scalability and compliance needs. In turn, Azul’s channel partners benefit from strong margins and the opportunity to expand their strategic portfolio of client services with a range of competitive advisory and service offerings, including Java application and infrastructure security managed services.
As it eyes further expansion of the program, Azul expects to quadruple the number of currently certified sales professionals, migration advisory and delivery partners, and partner engineers to better scale to meet this growing demand for Oracle Java alternatives.
“Going forward, we’re focused on bringing migration partners into our own service engagements as well as collaborating with partners early in their advisory license engagements to provide pivotal recommendations, all through a more aggressive channel-centric sales model,” said Simon Taylor, vice president of global channel sales at Azul. “Typically, it takes up to 5 years to convert from a direct –to channel approach. We’ve done this in two years because we recognized that resellers are keen to expand their differentiation into high value service revenue streams due to pressure on traditional license margins. By empowering our partners with flexible terms, attractive margins, type specific rewards structures and comprehensive training, we are building an ecosystem that delivers exceptional value to Java users worldwide.”
Program Milestones and Future Growth Initiatives
Additional channel program highlights include a 13.5% improvement in pipeline conversion year-over-year for the first half of fiscal year 2025, and since the launch of Azul’s PartnerConnect certification program in May, 300 individuals are already certified or are in progress, with another 1,200 individuals registered to take the training.
Azul’s updated channel program is targeting 60% revenue contribution from partners in its fiscal 2025, highlighting the company’s commitment to its channel-first strategy. The company is also focusing on operational improvements to enhance scalability for partners and exploring synergies with managed service SaaS offerings and cloud service providers like AWS and Google.
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