Azul signs Aquion as A/NZ distributor

Java platform provider Azul has appointed Aquion as its local distributor in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ).

Referring to itself a Java platform for modern cloud enterprises, Azul offers a range of software products, including Azul Intelligence Cloud to generate intelligence from production Java runtime data, Azul Platform Core, which supports builds of OpenJDK, and Azul Platform Prime, which includes Azul Zing, an enhanced build of OpenJDK.

Speaking to ARN, Azul vice president of APAC Dean Vaughan claimed Aquion’s appointment “makes sense” to the vendor.

“It provides more head count and the ability to plug into Aquion’s channel,” he said. “It allows resellers to be educated more quickly than if we were to hire our own people and have them trained. This will also allow Aquion to execute sales quickly.”

Vaughan said the appointment was propelled by the platform provider’s strong growth and continued momentum across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.  

He claimed that organisations were turning to its OpenJDK solutions to address cost and performance challenges in the wake of Oracle’s Java Standard Edition (SE) pricing change and rising cloud expenses.

“In APAC, we saw a 37 per cent year-on-year growth of our channel last quarter,” Vaughan said. “The two areas of growth for Azul’s channel growth have been Oracle’s Java SE pricing change and AWS [Amazon Web Services] licensing fees.”

Vaughen noted a “steady increase in audit threats” and “aggressive sales tactics” from Oracle in the region. According to him, these market shifts have driven more customers towards Azul’s Java solutions, contributing to its market success.

“This means there’s very little competition and conflict for Azul’s channel partners in A/NZ,” he said. There’s opportunity in savings for end users, but Azul still offers our channel partners a healthy profitable margin.”

Azul’s APAC channel partner growth remained strong year-on year, with new bookings driven or fulfilled through regional partners that doubled from 38 per cent in 2023 to 72 per cent in 2024.

The vendor’s partner ecosystem in 2024 includes distributors aligned to emerging market geographies, country-specific resellers and pan-region systems integrators.

The systems integrators in particular specialise in delivering services to customers who are seeking Java advisory and migration expertise, application modernisation support and cloud cost optimisation solutions.

“We are also experiencing our highest volume of channel partner opportunity registrations ever, driven by enterprises searching for alternatives to Oracle Java and seeking innovative ways to optimise cloud costs,” Vaughan added.