Oracle to buy BEA for $8.5 billion

Ending contentious three-month courtship driven by Carl Icahn, Oracle agrees to top by 14 percent offer rejected by BEA last year.

The story "Oracle to buy BEA for $8.5 billion" published January 16, 2008 at 5:06 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[nottlv]

I think you mean shares of BEA went up 18%, not Oracle

The last paragraph is incorrect...

[Zoe Slocum]

Yes, that's correct

Thank you for pointing out the error. We've fixed it and are filing a correction.

[nottlv]

I think you mean shares of BEA went up 18%, not Oracle

The last paragraph is incorrect...

[Zoe Slocum]

Yes, that's correct

Thank you for pointing out the error. We've fixed it and are filing a correction.

[danielnelson]

System Admins are nervous

Lots of excitement and change in the web application server market right now -- but excitement and change are not what system administrators want. For this group, uncertainty is frightening. With today?s announcement of Oracle acquiring BEA, many companies are going to be faced with migration decisions or decisions on how to effectively support a mixed environment of web application servers. There needs to be a way to easily migrate applications from one web application server to others (even if different flavors ? WebSphere, BEA, Oracle, JBoss?). Industry analysts estimate that as much as 40% of all down time is attributable to configuration errors. Configuration chaos may soon present itself as customers try to migrate to or from Oracle OAS and Fusion or to and from BEA. My company, Phurnace, has a great approach to solving this problem. Check out www.phurnace.com for more information. ? Daniel Nelson, Phurnace co-founder and former system administrator

[danielnelson]

System Admins are nervous

Lots of excitement and change in the web application server market right now -- but excitement and change are not what system administrators want. For this group, uncertainty is frightening. With today?s announcement of Oracle acquiring BEA, many companies are going to be faced with migration decisions or decisions on how to effectively support a mixed environment of web application servers. There needs to be a way to easily migrate applications from one web application server to others (even if different flavors ? WebSphere, BEA, Oracle, JBoss?). Industry analysts estimate that as much as 40% of all down time is attributable to configuration errors. Configuration chaos may soon present itself as customers try to migrate to or from Oracle OAS and Fusion or to and from BEA. My company, Phurnace, has a great approach to solving this problem. Check out www.phurnace.com for more information. ? Daniel Nelson, Phurnace co-founder and former system administrator

[paulej]

Employees should be nervous

How many BEA employees will get axed? Oracle has a sorry track record in this regard... acquisition by Oracle should scare any employee.

[AmericanITWorker]

Au contraire...

The folks that should be nervous are the Oracle employees that have been building and deploying the technology that competes with BEA. Initially they'll all be singing Kumbaya, but after a few years ORCL will standardize on the superior BEA tech stack. Look back at what has happened in the prior acquisitions: PSFT, SEBL, JDE, Retek. If the company being acquired had better technology, Oracle took the opportunity to trim out people in the organization who weren't adding value to the business. The other folks that need to be nervous are BEAS pointy haired bosses (PHBs). Oracle doesn't need all of the PHBs that ran BEA for several years. They should all be jumping off right about now like rats off of a sinking ship. If you have good skills in the BEA tech stack as either a developer or consultant, you'll be able to weather the storm just fine.

[paulej]

Employees should be nervous

How many BEA employees will get axed? Oracle has a sorry track record in this regard... acquisition by Oracle should scare any employee.

[AmericanITWorker]

Au contraire...

The folks that should be nervous are the Oracle employees that have been building and deploying the technology that competes with BEA. Initially they'll all be singing Kumbaya, but after a few years ORCL will standardize on the superior BEA tech stack. Look back at what has happened in the prior acquisitions: PSFT, SEBL, JDE, Retek. If the company being acquired had better technology, Oracle took the opportunity to trim out people in the organization who weren't adding value to the business. The other folks that need to be nervous are BEAS pointy haired bosses (PHBs). Oracle doesn't need all of the PHBs that ran BEA for several years. They should all be jumping off right about now like rats off of a sinking ship. If you have good skills in the BEA tech stack as either a developer or consultant, you'll be able to weather the storm just fine.