Robert Pierce

Will Oracle Pass BEA In the Middleware Market?

Dennis, I work for Oracle so one could say I'm probably a little biased than your average investor. Your perspective is insightful, as always, however, I do have a couple questions about a sentence you wrote at the end of your Dec 21st post: "If Fusion doesn’t do the job, Oracle is unlikely to turn to Microsoft or SAP for help. Given the history of IBM with the Oracle J.D. Edwards products and ill-fated plans for IBM to work with the Oracle PeopleSoft products, perhaps Oracle would make a middleware deal with the devil. But the real easy answer for Oracle as a fallback middleware position would be BEA."

What were you referring to when you said if Fusion doesn't do the job? Do you mean if Oracle's app server doesn't work for its next generation application architecture? I'm pretty sure that train's already left the station. Also, you mentioned SAP as an app server vendor that Oracle would be unlikely to turn to if "Fusion doesn't do the job". Were you lumping Netweaver into the category of third-party app server provider along with the likes of BEA and IBM? Just curious. Oracle has its challenges just like every other software company in the market, but having a proven and viable app server isn't at the top of the list. SAP's enterprise apps are indeed a formidable competitor to Oracle's but I don't believe SAP will be selling their "app server" to other app vendors anytime soon. Nor will SAP likely be included in the near future into IDC's or anyone else's reports that identify leading app server providers.