Business
The shape of things to come
As Britton observes, Oracle's $10 billion absorption of PeopleSoft will mean more acceleration of integration efforts between various potential "killer apps" (sorry, Britton, couldn't resist) within the budding Web services and SOA space. The acquisition is also is proof of an immutable law of business: when two or more vendors begin to offer identical products or services, consolidation becomes inevitable.
As Britton observes, Oracle's $10 billion absorption of PeopleSoft will mean more acceleration of integration efforts between various potential "killer apps" (sorry, Britton, couldn't resist) within the budding Web services and SOA space.
The acquisition is also is proof of an immutable law of business: when two or more vendors begin to offer identical products or services, consolidation becomes inevitable. This brings to mind one of the contradictions of Web services/SOA. Namely, since applications, platforms and tools are being built around commonly shared standards, such as J2EE, what happens to competitive differentiation? Vendors will acknowledge that such standardization chases competitive differentiation higher up the stack, as well as out to services around the software. We'll see increasing standardization of ERP software, which is the very core of enterprise software infrastructures. Chances are, then, we'll see more mergers or acquisitions as Web services and SOA advance.
The acquisition is also is proof of an immutable law of business: when two or more vendors begin to offer identical products or services, consolidation becomes inevitable. This brings to mind one of the contradictions of Web services/SOA. Namely, since applications, platforms and tools are being built around commonly shared standards, such as J2EE, what happens to competitive differentiation? Vendors will acknowledge that such standardization chases competitive differentiation higher up the stack, as well as out to services around the software. We'll see increasing standardization of ERP software, which is the very core of enterprise software infrastructures. Chances are, then, we'll see more mergers or acquisitions as Web services and SOA advance.