sure you can have reflections in a software render, all you need to do is make sure you have ray traceing setting turn on in the render options.
I got good reflection in both software and Mental Ray. Make sure your water is very flat. Also on your checkerd plane, add some ambient colour. Push it about half way up.This causes it to reflect more in the water.
Also there are some setting in the ocean shader. Go to your attributes editor and find the "Specular Shading" section. Play with the specularity and eccentricity settings. This will also help you tweak the reflections.
Good luck
Hope this helps

Nick