Oracle's (con)Fusion Middleware?
A bit belatedly, I thought it would be worthwhile to add a different perspective to recent reporting around Oracle's rebranding of its "bag of middleware". For example,
Joe McKendrick at ZDNet likens the new Oracle Fusion Middleware brand to IBM's
Websphere.
But it's more subtle than that. The truth is that Oracle's intent is to create something much closer to SAP's
NetWeaver - a platform which helps Oracle convince customers that its sprawling set of packaged business applications will eventually work seamlessly together; while at the same time making customers less likely to look to a third party for application and service integration technology.
Meanwhile, SAP is taking it to the next level with its Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA) and Business Process Platform. This week saw SAP announce a slew of partnerships, with the likes of Adobe, Cisco, CA, EMC, Intel, Macromedia, Mercury, Microsoft, Symantec and Veritas around ESA...