« Oracle Sets Sights on BEA Systems | Main | BEA Says NO DICE! »

Neil Macehiter of the firm Macehiter Ward-Dutton, says that IBM is the big winner in all of this. "Suddenly, customers looking for a middleware backbone that’s independent of their applications suite are left with only one credible candidate."

Neil said he can’t say the Oracle acquisition of BEA comes as a great surprise, particularly with Icahn upping his stake in BEA. "I think this makes it more likely that BEA will accept the offer."

"I see this primarily as a market share grab by Oracle. It does plug some gaps in the portfolio – particularly around BPM (based on BEA’s Fuego acquisition); adds some telecoms vertical market capabilities and the virtualisation work that BEA has done with the JRockit engine. Also, there’s the opportunity for Oracle to tap into the healthy Tuxedo base.

"This is yet another example of the big specialist players getting squeezed out by the industry goliaths – IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP – and the open source, smaller best-of-breed players. SAP’s acquisition of Business Objects is another example (although that did plug a few more gaps).

"I see the likes of TIBCO, RedHat and Progress as most threatened by this. Taking market share from BEA would have helped their growth strategies: Oracle is a different kettle of fish.

"BEA has struggled to grow revenue from licenses which is key for a company of its size. Oracle’s profitability comes in large part from maintenance revenue so the maintenance revenue from BEA’s customer base will serve it better.

Posted by elizabeth in M&A |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.ebizq.net/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2753