I started 2008 with the New Year’s resolution to give up alcohol. So far, I’m doing quite well but come April I might just let standards slip and indulge in a few beers. What’s the occasion? Well, as from mid April BEA ceases to exist as an independent company and enters the fold as an Oracle acquisition.

Oracle acquired BEA at the start of 2008 in a move that surprised no one. For years, the speculation has been not if someone will take over BEA but who and when. Having worked with the WebLogic platform since about version 6, I’ll be a little sorry to see the product lose its identity to the Oracle Fusion suite, hence the planned commiseration beer in April.

At this point, all we can do is speculate as to what Oracle has planned for the future of WebLogic. Chances are we’ll see the main product lines continued for several years but really the writing is on the wall and we’ll likely see old favourites such as WebLogic subsumed into Oracle’s middleware stack.

The eventual removal of a big player like BEA from the market means less choice for consumers in the SOA/middleware space. Now less choice is usually a bad thing as it tends to drive up prices and removes the impetus for vendors to innovate. However, in the case of the merger of Oracle and BEA this could prove a positive step for the industry.

The ESB market is still in its infancy and the IT community is spoilt for choice by high-end offerings. All of these tools still have a long way to go before they reach the level of maturity available from traditional component-based platforms. Driving the current crop of SOA tools to full maturity requires not just investment from vendors but for the development community to get behind these technology platforms, and through hard-earned experience, advance them forwards. In short, what’s needed is a critical mass of informed community input that helps shape the future of SOA and the tools that support the service-oriented architectural style. Unfortunately, this build-up of experience has been slow to accumulate due to the fragmentation of the market by so many competing products. In this case, I believe that less is more.

So, whether you’re getting a SOA project up and running or a developer looking to update your C.V., this predicted consolidation of the middleware market should offer benefits. If you’re a project manager then expect to have a larger pool of resources to draw upon. Likewise, if you are a developer then expect to find a broader range of employers wanting your product specific skills.

Nothing personal BEA but someone had to take one for the team.

Alan Monnox, March 2008