Oracle + Sun: What it Means for Content Management

By Irina Guseva (@irina_guseva) Feb 18, 2010

2 comments

After many intellectual property and anti-trust concerns, one of the biggest deals in the technology space has been approved. Sun fans wipe their tears, as Oracle (news, site) chooses a new motto "Software. Hardware. Complete." — aiming to provide a full stack of storage, hardware, operating systems, databases, middleware and Java.

All of the above are integral parts of the content management industry. Thus, we pondered a bit over what, if any, impact the Oracle/Sun merger will have on thee.

Middleware and Content Management

The "11g" series is the new black over at Oracle. Part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g monster suite of products, Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) is, as many of you know, largely based on Oracle's 2006 acquisition of Stellent. In the spirit of further consolidation, Sun products — according to Oracle’s ambitious strategy — will become part of Oracle Fusion Middleware.

Integrating Sun into its Oracle Fusion Middleware portfolio, Oracle says it is will provide maintenance to existing Sun middleware customers and will not force any migrations. Yet, the vendor doesn’t miss a chance to highlight a "variety of upgrade options."

It’s never easy to combine several WCM and/or ECM products in one portfolio — just look at Open Text’s ongoing struggles. And while it is still early, we think that Sun’s integration may bolster Oracle’s position in the content management market and, perhaps, add some fresh blood to the rather stagnated UCM.

Portal Technologies

The portal technology area seems to be a bit more uncertain at the moment. We have Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g and Sun’s (open source portal Liferay-flavored) Glassfish Web Space Server.

Out of all the portal technologies that this merger brings together in one basket, most likely, the focus will stay on Oracle’s own product, although the company plans to continue support of Sun portal customers.

But we don’t think it will be long before we hear about migrations. If you’re one of those early adopters, Oracle is already advertising and re-iterating an upgrade path for Sun GlassFish Web Space Server to Oracle WebCenter Suite.

Collaboration and Office Productivity

Microsoft and Google may feel more competitive pains as Oracle takes Sun’s rather successful OpenOffice.org under its wing. Sun’s productivity offering dates back to 2000 and includes web-based and desktop versions of office productivity apps, running in just about any browser or any device.

It would make sense for Oracle to continue to invest in both the open source and commercial (StarOffice) versions of OpenOffice.org. On Oracle’s side, we see a gap in the office productivity tools space. We wouldn’t be surprised if the next thing Oracle does is integration of OpenOffice with Oracle UCM and connectors to other Java-friendly web content management systems.

The same probably goes for collaboration tools. Oracle’s own Beehive may overpower Sun’s Java Communications Suite, where similar to portals, Oracle’s investment in Beehive may skew the priorities list going forward.