I just can’t wait for Flash on Android…and for Apple’s hand to [hopefully] get forced into supporting Flash as well.

A few of us have got some writer’s cramp (is there such a thing when typing?) from writing an excellent WebCenter 11g book.

These words are being used more and more. Of course, it was just a matter of time before the popularity and creativity of “Web 2.0″ as a buzzword was reused, extended, and blatantly copied for other innovations in the technology space.

Oracle Corporation has recently published a white paper written by M&S Consulting, where we take the opportunity to outline an integration approach to Salesforce.com using Oracle BPEL.

A Technical Case Study – Creating an Oracle BPEL adapter to integrate with Salesforce.com - Feb 2009

Below is the introduction to the article, which goes on to detail (with step-by-step screenshots) how to achieve integration with Salesforce.com…

SOA Labels

Among their many characteristics, all too often SOA projects have been labeled in their worst moments as:

• Overly complex in architecture, design, and communication to the organization
• Lacking the ability to control costs during implementation and maintenance
• Difficult to attract and retain talent with valuable experience, deep skills, and real success

It’s Not SOA’s Fault

Guess what. None of these are characteristics of SOA, but instead…

Well, this is a topic we have reviewed numerous times over the years for projects and customers. The fact is, like most important decisions, picking a winner is based mostly on your specific needs. Of the many aspects we review, we will discuss one line of thought in this article.

If there is in-house expertise in Oracle, and management is happy with the skills, productivity of existing staff, and license fees, stick with it. I don’t know many — actually, I don’t know any — CIOs or Directors in IT Management that have been berated for choosing Oracle as an enterprise-wide database platform.

That said, if the strategic decision to use Oracle database for all purposes hasn’t been made, MySQL is worth a very serious look, especially for …

In the past, there has been acquisition synergy, which sometimes meant moderate layoffs. Acquisition in this economy, for companies the size of Oracle and Sun, may broaden the definition of “moderate” layoffs a bit. In order to make this Oracle’s most successful acquisition ever (as Oracle’s president has predicted), layoffs may become an important — more so than normal — part of the acquisition synergy.  With less buyers than there were a year ago, there is only so much revenue that cross-selling and innovative product releases will earn.  Management will be making the hard decisions on what/who stays and what/who goes.

A few articles online note analyst predictions upwards of 10,000 layoffs.  I would say it is a bit too early for outsiders to reasonably predict layoff numbers (hopefully lessons were learned when people got it all wrong with Oracle’s January layoff rumors), but the “L” word is certainly on many minds these days.

Move over, for now, IBM…Oracle has taken its place as the buyer of Sun.  This may be one of the most compelling acquisitions in recent Oracle times.  In Oracle’s press release, President Safra Catz was quoted saying:

“…This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined.”

For implementation architects and consultants, Oracle gets one step closer to total enterprise domination.  With Oracle’s own Linux and now Solaris, the days of Oracle and OS-vendor finger pointing are numbered.  On the core database side, Oracle has now purchased MySQL (it was previously purchased by Sun), which we believe to be one of Oracle’s greatest threats.  As the database with 20/20 hindsight, a lightweight footprint (equaling fast performance), and growing popularity, Oracle has now effectively captured an important market.  Reinvention is an important innovator, and Oracle has taken a welcome leap in acquiring MySQL.

I am excited to see how Oracle will enhance MySQL and potentially fast-track high-impact features (like security) in a way that “Oracle would have done it if they could do it all over again”.

For Java and all the other technologies (hardware and software), products, etc. that are being acquired, I believe Oracle will be a responsible industry citizen, holding true to standards, enhancing community, and providing benefits/choice to customers.

Ashok Aggarwal, a Partner at M&S Consulting has recently written a complete review of Oracle WebCenter Suite.  This has been published in a few major trade journals and websites. You can read the article at:

Oracle WebCenter Review - Framework, Web 2.0 Services, and SOA

Following are two excerpts from the article. The review goes into a fair amount of detail with Oracle WebCenter 10gR3:

When customers approach us to help them solve their business requirements, they often have a set of existing applications, both custom and purchased, that requires their end users to spend time moving from one system to the other. Even a simple task like approving a budget request, first requires the users to check existing committed budget allocations in spreadsheets or enterprise applications. Then they must visit a set of reports from their business analytics system to understand current spending levels. And finally, they need to correspond with the requestor to validate all the specifics of the proposal. All of these interactions require the end user to remember and interpret information from one system to the other. It is a key requirement to allow business users an easy way to link these different components in the context of the budgetary task they are trying to accomplish. Customers are looking for a way to share information with others in a faster, simpler and more dynamic way.

Oracle WebCenter is an integrated, standards-based, user interaction suite that includes a set of Web 2.0 services. WebCenter is used to develop task-oriented user experiences for transactional applications, composite SOAs, enterprise portals, and Web sites. It includes a pre-packaged infrastructure to enable content integration, content management, Web publishing, search, and application customizations. It allows for heterogeneous systems to be leveraged directly to integrate systems, documents, information, and processes into a common user interface. WebCenter enables people to share information within their enterprise using their Web 2.0 services, which include discussions, wiki pages, and RSS feeds. It also allows them to compose mashups and integrate presence, instant messaging, and Voice over IP (VOIP). Some people think of it as an enterprise framework and others feel it is a set of services. The reality is that it is both.

I have seen a bit of confusion in the industry about Oracle’s Portal offerings. Specifically, with thousands of Oracle Portal customers, people want to know what the introduction of WebCenter means to them.

Here is my statement on the topic, that is both obvious and the most realistic one you will get:

Oracle Portal and Oracle WebCenter Suite are different products.

I said it would be obvious. But this is an important foundation for the rest of the discussion, since many people want to convince themselves that WebCenter is essentially an upgrade of Oracle Portal. I believe the WebCenter offering to be more like Oracle acquiring another company and then determining the path for convergence. It is true that WebCenter can, and will, address some of the same business use cases as Portal as well as some new ones that Portal does not handle particularly well. It is also true that both products come out of essentially the same group within Oracle. Oracle, like many software companies, can, should, and does reinvent itself continually.

Oracle Portal, however, will not go anywhere, anytime soon. Oracle has an interesting challenge in their Portal product strategy with Portal and WebCenter. I believe Oracle would like to sink all their time and energy into WebCenter because:

1. WebCenter is their new, cool, reinvented product
2. WebCenter addresses some of the new challenges that enterprises need to address
3. WebCenter’s technology architecture is leading the industry, and lines up more closely with open standards than Portal
4. WebCenter has the potential to earn much more direct licensing revenue for Oracle

However there are a few factors that prevent this from simply displacing Portal:

1. Portal is used successfully by thousands of customers, many of whom have been using it for years
2. Portal does not require an organization to have talent with the latest skills sets to develop and maintain
3. Portal has become quite stable and understood over the years
4. Portal has powerful and compelling features that really do make sense for enterprises, at the right price point
5. Oracle provides prebuilt portlets for many of its products like Oracle Applications, Discoverer, and the BPEL Worklist

The lists for each side go on and on. However, the Oracle strategy is likely to simply see how customers and the industry embrace the products. We have all seen challenges Microsoft has faced (at least perceived) when rolling out new products, like Vista, and everyone scratches their heads wondering why those mistakes are made. Well, I think Oracle will be careful to manage perception as they have the unique ability to get existing and new customers very excited.