Oracle on SAP's NetWeaver: Bring it on

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plans to begin publishing the interfaces of NetWeaver and inviting third-party companies to build add-ons to the SAP applications.

Wookey said that Oracle has software for automating business processes using industry standards, but that SAP does not. Oracle purchased a small company last year called Collaxa that has developed a business process "engine" based on a Web services specification called BPEL, for Business Process Execution Language.

Wookey said the name "Fusion" came from a former PeopleSoft engineer who noted that before the merger, both Oracle and PeopleSoft had projects under way to create standards-based infrastructure and tools. The initiatives were called People Tools X and Oracle 11i X, Wookey said.

Oracle executives did not single out Microsoft as a competitor in discussions with customers, but Microsoft is working on a project analogous to Oracle Fusion and SAP NetWeaver. Project Green, which had its introduction delayed again earlier this year, is designed to provide a common platform across Microsoft's packaged applications.

In addition to common software, Oracle intends to provide a more common pricing scheme for its different applications, executives said. The company expects to eventually publicly publish pricing for PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, as it does for Oracle eBusiness suite.

Another way Oracle can compete against SAP is to beef up via acquisitions, notably by buying application providers focused on specific industries. The purchase of retail application specialist Retek could provide a model for other deals, although Oracle does not rule out acquisitions in other areas, Phillips said.

Although Oracle has historically been known as a database company, the company's strategy is to bulk up its applications business as rapidly as it can. That's because an application customer will "drag" sales of the Fusion software and Oracle database.

"What's not widely understood is that being successful in the applications business is probably the best thing for our database business," Phillips said. "If you want to grow the database business, you'd better own the applications."

[TheMidnightCoder]

And how is this not "Vendor Lock"?

Just because they base themselves on "standards" does not mean anything can be moved between platforms. I just dont understand why the OSS community tolerates Oracle, Sun, HP, SAP, etc.. but blast Microsoft. They ALL want vendor lock. Its how they make money. But soe use teasers with the OSS community to gain their favor, then use it for marketing against the evil M$ empire. They ought to wake up and smell the spin. It sure seems that we'll be down to three or four "platforms" soon. Actually, I think the PC itself will disappear (as we know it today) within ten years. Programming "business applications" will be pretty much be gone too. That's why IBM sold its PC division, and basic programming jobs are going overseas. We won't need them anymore. Development platforms are getting easier and easier to use. You can darn near point and click together an application on any platform. A few more years and no one will need to write code.
Boy I feel old. Things just move along so fast...

Considering The Other Competitors In The Race!

While it will be quite interesting to see what happens down the road with regards to the ambitious Oracle Fusion Middleware project as it comes up against the heavyweight "SAP" in back-end server software; and, while - if anything at all was mentioned in this article about this company and as as the competition heats up and we also see a "reduction" of the numbers in the competition, and as we come down the end of the race... one should consider seriously what will be the development and global positioning strategies of a "thoroughbred" of the likeness of "IBM" who also actively develops and promotes a Java application server, a Web portal (WebSphere) and other business intelligence software. Are there any bets on this race as to who will be the winner?