Oracle offers a peek at social apps and Fusion
Oracle showed how it is bringing a social dimension into its software and offered a peek at Fusion applications this afternoon at Oracle OpenWorld. It demonstrated that Oracle has fully grokked the concepts and technologies of Web 2.0 and that Fusion apps …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Fusion peek lands after a long build-up: per figures cited around Hurd's keynote this week at Oracle OpenWorld — no wait, ground it locally — Oracle has completed 41 acquisitions over roughly 45 months, and Fusion is the promised consolidation of that spree into a single application suite. The demonstration at Oracle OpenWorld is the first substantive look customers have gotten at how those pieces fit together, now framed through a Web 2.0 lens of social features woven into enterprise software.
Timing matters beyond the keynote. Three weeks ago Oracle sent BEA's directors a letter pressing its rejected $17-per-share takeover offer, so every Fusion reveal doubles as a message to BEA holders about what an absorbed BEA would plug into. The same week, 3.58% of Oracle shares backed an open-source proposal at the annual meeting — a small but visible constituency watching how closed the Fusion stack turns out.
First-order effects
- Fusion application customers finally see a concrete roadmap instead of a promise, which directly affects upgrade and migration decisions across Oracle's acquired installed base.
- BEA's board faces renewed pressure: Oracle's rejected $17-a-share bid came with a follow-up letter, and a confident Fusion showcase strengthens Oracle's argument that its platform can absorb rivals' assets.
Second-order effects
- Rival enterprise application vendors must now respond to a suite-plus-social pitch, making collaborative Web 2.0 features table stakes rather than differentiation in enterprise software demos.
- If the BEA pursuit resumes, integration expectations shift toward Fusion's architecture, giving Oracle leverage in pricing any renewed approach.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward enterprise software consolidating into mega-suites assembled by serial acquirers, with vendors competing on integration breadth and user experience layers borrowed from consumer web design.
- Shareholder pressure on openness — however marginal the 3.58% vote — foreshadows recurring tension between proprietary suite economics and customer demands for standards in consolidated stacks.
The trend: Enterprise software in late 2007 is converging on consolidated, socially-inflected application suites built through serial acquisition, with Oracle's Fusion as the defining test case.