Leave aside Oracle's impressive roadmap diagrams for Enterprise 2.0. Today in the Portal and Social Software marketplaces the company sells a menagerie of overlapping yet underwhelming platforms that have not really gelled yet. Case in point: there are three wikis among them, but none of them are state of the art.

Let's dwell on just one product, Oracle Beehive, released in mid-2008. There's been a buzz of interest around its collaboration and groupware services, but if you look inside, prepare to get stung a few times.

There are several reasons for this that we detail in our latest Enterprise Social Software & Collaboration Report, but one shortcoming in particular struck me: you must use Oracle Application Server, which in fact gets installed by default. (Beehive also requires Oracle Database, but that's not a huge limitation). Oracle watchers know that its Application Server is getting deprecated in favor of the former BEA WebLogic appserver.

Oracle clearly has a lot riding on its "11g" series of upgrades and promised rationalizations due later this year. Today you can find some good components selectively under the covers of various Oracle platforms. But it seems dangerous to commit to any of them, until such time upgrade risks can be brought to reasonable levels.