Monday, February 08, 2010

Oracle, AmberPoint, and the SOA Management ecosystem

Earlier this morning, Oracle announced it had entered into an agreement to acquire AmberPoint.  AmberPoint will be integrated and managed under Oracle’s Enterprise Manager division, and over time will be ported to the EM management framework.

For both existing customers and new prospects, this is positive news on many levels (i.e. broader/deeper capabilities after integration with EM, removing any doubts or concerns over vendor financial stability, product viability, solution’s strategic fit in the enterprise, etc).  AmberPoint will fill the gaps in Oracle’s SOA management capabilities today, and should play a key role for Oracle Cloud management in the future. With Oracle’s sales and distribution channels, AmberPoint will be able to reach new markets and extend market share.

In SOA management business, AmberPoint and SOA Software were the only key niche players left.  This acquisition puts Oracle in direct competition with SOA Software.  It will end the Oracle and SOA software partnership.  Looking forward, SOA Software is likely either going to get acquired – or - has to figure out a different product and partner strategy to compete. 

In terms of acquisition, the usual suspects for SOA Software include IBM, Microsoft, CA, HP, BMC or possibly even SAP.   Any of these vendors should be able to take their solutions and integrate them as part of a broader ESM/BSM solution.  SOA Software assets could help accelerate with that.  As far as product strategy, I think SOA Software will have to break away from just “SOA management” targeting enterprise customers into broader Cloud management also targeting Cloud service providers: self-service, asset/portfolio management, Cloud operational governance (quota, policies, SLA, billing, …) configuration, provisioning, automation…  They can do some of that on their own or go to market with new partners.

In summary, Oracle’s acquisition is definitely good for customers.  It also forces the other player to consider solutions and strategies.

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