At a closing panel of a European Commission internal IT conference in Brussels last week, Andrew Sutherland, Oracle EMEA VP Technology repeated the frequently-issued official statement that Oracle intends to keep all four of the enterprise portals it currently possesses. He then went on to say that it was important to emphasize that customers only need one of the four, and not multiple or all four.

This is an interesting remark:

• Many customers find themselves with a combination of BEA and Oracle portals. Which one should they migrate to?
• While the 4 products overlap to a large extent, there are also significant differences between them, e.g., WebLogic Portal versus BEA AquaLogic User Interaction. Should a new or existing WebLogic Portal customer really adopt the product for all their portal requirements?

I had the pleasure of sitting on the panel and used the opportunity to share my open question that WebLogic Portal might have had its final major release. The panel took an unexpected turn when the IBM representative took the microphone to defend Oracle, despite the fact the IBM has WebSphere Portal as their only portal product.

There are different ways to segment the portal market, but I still favor scenario-based analysis. While Oracle may have a track record for sustaining products they acquire, at the end of the day, license money from customers will decide which products survive. For those considering buying an enterprise portal from Oracle, I would recommend taking a closer look at WebCenter, which seems to be positioned as the product of the future.