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Oracle Buys BEA
In an event not as surprising as this morning's buyout announcement, but still noteworthy, Oracle has purchased BEA Systems. The middleware maker was snapped up for the sum of $8.5 billion, the second offer Oracle put forward. "BEA had long been considered a prime takeover target in an industry that has been consolidating for several years, but BEA executives had repeatedly dismissed Oracle's overtures, saying the company could perform better independently. Mr. Icahn began buying up BEA shares last summer, and today owns 13 percent of the company. The deal makes Oracle the undisputed leader in the market for middleware, business software that gets its name from its role as a layer of programming code that resides between a company's database system and the payroll, human resources and inventory systems that use the same data."
It will be interesting to see what they ultimately get for their $8.5B. I work in a BEA group where quite a few folks are ex-Oracle, and they have universally unkind things to say about their former employer. The mood is decidedly un-optimistic in our CA office.
Any tips on how to request to be on the list of layoffs (to get the severance)?
-OracleHater
It's that thing that sits between topware and bottomware.
It's a very important ware. You might say it's essential for enterprises.
About how Oracle is floundering, and quite close to melting down from its attempts at integrating all the middleware platforms it has picked up in the last four purchases it made. Obviously, when you're having serious trouble getting all your different software platforms integrated, the best solution is to buy another one. Good move Oracle.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
A marketing term for any piece of software that a user does not directly see, or alternatively any piece of software a journalist doesn't understand.
In BEA's case there talking about Tuxedo ( distributed messaging/ queuing system), weblogic ( J2EE app Server) and aqualogic ( a compilation of buzzwords compliant programs that I don't understand).
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Buying a company is usually about buying their loyal customers, not about buying their product. Then you declare that the official upgrade path for their software is onto your own product's software track in the next version. Very few of the customers will revolt, thanks to limited marketplace options.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"This transaction is an excellent example of the great results that can be achieved for all constituencies when the shareholder activist is able to work cooperatively with management," Mr. Icahn said in a statement. (from TFA)
Translation...this hostile takeover is an excellent example of how I can buy up lots of stock, sue said company into being bought out, the stock price artificially goes up so I make tons of money, lots of employees get screwed, and I don't care about the pawns in my money game," Mr Icahn laughed as he went to the bank with his ill gotten, but "legal" gains.
Normally very true. Muddled somewhat in this case by the overall bland reputation of the Oracle products that overlap BEA's (is anyone even using Oracle's app server for something other than supporting Oracle apps these days?)
My guess is BEA's customers are in for more of a re-branding than a product EOL: many of the BEA stack component technologies would be folded into the Oracle product mix and renamed. I'm not convinced the BEA brand was a big draw for new business these days anyway, so it would be a manageable pain from Oracle's perspective. The biggest headache in this case may be getting BEA's current customer base to not cut bait and migrate once they see Oracle's product pricing, post-branding.
One big EOL risk (IMHO) is the AquaLogic stuff, given Oracle's big push into SOA the past couple of years--Ellison, et al, may not want to eat that R/D.
Not good times right now for the majority of BEA's staff though, in any event...
Any bets on the next few headlines today?
I'm going for
Sun buys Oracle
Google buys Sun
Google buys Microsoft
The person who modded this troll has clearly never used Oracle. Believe me, if there's a source of evil it's Oracle.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
OK, sounds about right.
But for those to whom the reply sounds like a foreign language (on the order of one like Guugu Yimithirr), perhaps an example is in order.
From my understanding:
You're at an ATM machine. The front end is what you work with - the user interface that you are telling that you want to transfer $xx to another account.
The back end are the data bases that receive all that information
The middle ware is what makes sure the transaction goes through without error even though computers are crashing left and right and network connections are being chewed upon by evil squirrels.
Early days it was easy to see who had BEAS middleware on the web.
Fill your cart with junk, and hit the browser back button, not the screen back button.
If you lost everything in the cart, most likely it was IBM middleware.
If everything still worked no matter how much abuse you gave, BEAS software was working behind the scenes.
Bullshit.
While middleware is appropriate in the context you put forward, it is also appropriate in the "We have a mainframe app we built ourselves 15 years ago and we need to integrate it with a new web app we've developed and have those to apps work together with all our external partners and regulatory bodies" type scenario. Whether the source code of either system is open or closed is irrelevant if the interfaces are well defined. Middleware makes sense if you look at it from the point of view of a business performing a staged upgrade, whereby they can leave legacy systems which aint broke running, implement new functionality on new systems (which wont require them to hire a bunch of 70+ year old COBOL codgers to maintain it for the next 15 years) and then migrate the old functionality to newer tech. It all happens seemlessly with a good middleware solution, at least in theory.
Middleware is not a closed source tax, it is the mortar that helps keep solid infrastructure solid, whether you use open or closed source software.
I don't therefore I'm not.