Oracle Opens BEA Roadmap, Reassures Channel Partners

Having wrapped up its $6.7 billion acquisition of BEA Systems, Oracle is taking steps to keep BEA's channel partners in the fold and offering the first hints of how the two companies' product lines will be combined.

Tuesday Oracle president Charles Phillips said in a Webcast that Oracle will hold channel partner meetings in 70 cities starting next week to brief solution providers on the roadmap for BEA's software and its integration with Oracle's Fusion middleware. Oracle also will provide details about training and other services to help the combined 11,000 Oracle and BEA middleware solution providers and 5,000 ISVs work with the unified product line.

Phillips sought to reassure the market that BEA products won't be summarily discontinued and partners and customers won't be forced to switch from BEA to Oracle software. "All BEA products will continue under existing BEA support timelines. There will be no forced migration at all," Phillips said. Oracle and BEA share 77,000 customers, he said.

Some BEA products deemed "strategic" will quickly become part of the Fusion product line with little or no modification, said Thomas Kurian, senior vice president of Oracle Server Technologies. BEA's popular WebLogic application server, in fact, will become Oracle's flagship application server offering, although Kurian promised that Oracle would continue to develop its own application server. Strategic products will be integrated with other Fusion technology over the next 12 to 18 months.

Oracle will continue to develop key BEA products like the Tuxedo transaction processing system, incrementally incorporating Fusion technology over time, and providing maintenance and support services "at least another nine years," Kurian said. The BEA Workshop development toolset will eventually be combined with the Oracle Eclipse Pack, as will the BEA AquaLogic Service Bus and Oracle Enterprise Service Bus.

Oracle will honor maintenance and support plans for BEA products such as the BEA Beehive development toolset and BEA Cyclone interchange software that were already being phased out before the acquisition. Kurian promised such maintenance and support would continue for at least five years.

Last month Oracle quietly raised prices on many of its software products, including its Fusion middleware, by 15-to-20 percent or more. Some observers say industry consolidation, fueled, in part, by Oracle's long list of acquisitions, contributed to the company's ability to raise its prices.