* Merger likely to have greater impact on future of technology
The European Union finally dropped its objections to Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, so the deal went forward and Sun essentially ceased to exist late last month. To mark the occasion, Oracle held a big day-long announcement session in San Francisco, on the same day — and just a couple of miles away — from Apple’s introduction of the iPad. Considering all that’s been said after the events, the Oracle-Sun merger will have a bigger impact on the future of technology.
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I didn’t attend either event. I’m not the least interested in Steve Jobs’ latest gadget nor did I wish to sit through hours of database and business applications fluff in order to hear the few nuggets of identity-related material from Oracle. I was counting on world+dog to tell me about the iPad, and a few knowledgeable friends to talk about Oracle-Sun. Neither group failed me.
Oracle identity architect Nishant Kaushik did a good summary of the presentation by Thomas Kurian (executive vice president of Oracle Product Development) at the Oracle event and followed up with a great synopsis of a later online presentation by Hasan Rizvi, Oracle’s senior vice president for Oracle Fusion Middleware, Hasan Rizvi.
Quest senior director product management, Jackson Shaw, had his own take on the announcements and tried to translate from “marketing-speak” to English in a posting entitled “Sun IdM is Dead”. From the title, you can guess Jackson’s feelings.
You should read all three posts, Nishant’s for a better understanding of what Oracle will offer going forward, and Jackson’s to give you a head’s up on your Sun IdM investments. Remember, though, that Jackson does start with the caveat “…perhaps where I got my marketing and PR training (Microsoft) leads me to view things differently — maybe even incorrectly.”
My own take is that most of the Sun product line will be subsumed into Oracle’s similar products with only those unique items (such as Sun Role Manager) coming through in any semblance of their pre-Oracle appearance. But Sun customers will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future while Oracle builds transition tools to bring those customers into the Oracle fold. Oracle’s track record with customers of acquired products is good, there’s no reason to think this will be different.
Reminder: I’ll be “on the air” live on Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb. 9 and 10) at 9 a.m. EST (Tuesday) and 10 a.m. (Wednesday) with the gang from Kuppinger-Cole for the two-day virtual conference “Refinement, Expansion or Replacement — How to Optimize your Investment into Identity Management.” Sign up here.
