Azul announces winners of 2024 Channel Partner Awards

Azul has recently celebrated a notable occasion with the announcement of its 2024 Channel Partner Awards. The awards commend the steadfast performance and unwavering commitment of Azul's high-achieving channel partners. Thanks to these partners, customers across the globe have been able to sidestep pricy Oracle Java increases, enhance their cloud and infrastructure Java compute spending, and sharpen their Java security protocols.

Azul's honoured partners have been carefully selected from the more than 100 global affiliates involved in its PartnerConnect programme. The scheme is dedicated to enhancing the capabilities of its partners to better help customers overcome their Java-related challenges.

Simon Taylor, vice president of global channel sales at Azul, affirmed the importance of this collaboration. Taylor enthused: "Azul's Partners of the Year significantly changed the way Azul goes to market and have demonstrated exceptional performance and dedication to Azul, as well as being a driving force behind many of our customers' success [...] As our PartnerConnect program grows, we look forward to working closely with all of our partners to reach similar exceptional levels of success."

Several partners were highlighted for their outstanding contributions. OpenValue, acclaimed for its expert consultancy services and pioneering several international opportunities, secured Strategic Partner of the Year for their mastery in shifting from Oracle Java to Azul Platform Core. The award for North American Partner of the Year was given to Remend, credited for the important advisory role they play for customers transferring to Azul's OpenJDK-based offerings.

Software Advisors, responsible for achieving the most remarkable wins in their first year as a PartnerConnect referral partner, were hailed as Rocket Partner of the Year. Universal Management Solutions (UMS) were awarded Rookie Partner of the Year for their exceptional cooperation and insight in Oracle Java licensing issues during their first year as a PartnerConnect partner. Meanwhile, SoftwareOne was declared as Azul's top strategic international business partner, thus earning Global Partner of the Year.

Trent Allgood, regional vice president of IT Portfolio Management, North America at SoftwareOne, responded: "This award is a testament to our team's hard work, tireless dedication and commitment to delivering value to our customers [...] We are proud of our strong partnership with Azul and look forward to continuing our collaboration to drive mutual success."

Azul's PartnerConnect ecosystem has rapidly amplified the company's capacity to deliver incomparable value to international businesses. Following Oracle's Java pricing changes in January 2023, the programme swiftly brought on board 36 new partners, causing a 67% year-on-year increase in new customers transacting through Azul's channel partners.

Scott Sellers, co-founder and CEO of Azul, voiced his gratitude to Azul's partners for their key contributions: "We appreciate the invaluable contributions of our partners to Azul's growth and success and are thrilled to name our Channel Partners of the Year to recognize their deep commitments to customer success [...] Together with our partners worldwide, we collectively present a formidable combination for solving customers' Java licensing, security and cloud cost challenges."