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Janus Boye

Oracle trims portals in consolidation strategy

7-Jul-2008

Tags: Portals and Content Integration, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, , WebCenter Suite

Almost 6 months after Oracle announced a definitive agreement to acquire BEA, the company definitively stated its direction on the future of its four different enterprise portal products. Previously, the frequently-issued official statement indicated that all four enterprise portals would be kept. Now WebCenter is more clearly emerging as the portal of the future.

Combined under a new Oracle-specific definition of Enterprise 2.0, I'll highlight these two statements:

• Oracle WebCenter Suite and Oracle WebCenter Services are Oracle's strategic solutions for developing Enterprise 2.0 enabled portals, composite, and web applications.
  
• Oracle plans to continue to develop and support Oracle WebLogic Portal and Oracle Portal, and expects to converge these products with Oracle's strategic solutions over time
  

The former enterprise portals from BEA have now been renamed as Oracle WebLogic Portal and Oracle WebCenter Interaction (previously known as ALUI). For now Oracle Portal, WebLogic Portal and AquaLogic Portal are officially categorized as "continue and converge," which means that new customers are not steered in this direction, but support is maintained for 9 years.

Despite an apparent flip-flop from Oracle, the news comes as little surprise. Back in May 2007 I cautioned buyers that Oracle was shifting portals and placing WebCenter at the forefront with Oracle Portal edging retirement. Now that Oracle is being more open about the future of their portal products, new prospective Oracle customers should consider WebCenter, while existing licensees of the other three portals should already now build migration -- in some cases really outright replacement -- into their project plans and budgets.

[Update, July 9th: Clarified positioning of portal products, including ALUI)