Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Oracle's press release here: So we are now entering the pre-Virtualization 3.0 phase. I had , sort of , expected VMware to go for BEA but for now we'll see who VMware will see worthy of the middleware market. I'm sure it'll be yet again some cool, thin, flat and with a smaller footprint middleware shop. Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and BEA Systems (NASDAQ: BEAS) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire all outstanding shares of BEA for $19.375 per share in cash. The offer is valued at approximately $8.5 billion, or $7.2 billion net of BEA's cash on hand of $1.3 billion. "We expect this deal to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 1-2 cents on a non-GAAP basis in its first full year after closing," said Oracle President and Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz. "The addition of BEA products and technology will significantly enhance and extend Oracle's Fusion middleware software su...

I strongly think that VMware should! Not for the clients, as most of the IT shops, if they are blue chips, do run VMware, but in order to get into the Middleware business, especially when I know* that that is where they are gradually moving, an announcement next week may disclose their gradual transition towards the application focus. Anyways this post and that email from the Forrester Analyst does insist that Oracle should not ignore BEA and competition that will try to offer some resistance. Well he ruled out VMware, I still think that it too should be considered as a strong contender. Link

Billionaire Carl Icahn, BEA's biggest shareholder with approx 15% of its stock, has told a reporter that it is "insane" for the company to reject out of hand Oracle's unsolicited bid. "I'm not saying I accept $17," Icahn told Reuters. "It's going to be a three-month process." BEA is insisting that it's worth $21 per share. Icahn has written a letter to the BEA board, disclosed in an SEC filing, demanding that it let shareholders vote on what the best bid for BEA might be. The choices, he believes, ought necessarily to include the existing $6.7BN offer from Larry Ellison's Oracle Corp. I'm still wondering what's keeping VMware from not making this move.

Let me tell you why, before I point you to the original post of such speculation. Enterprise virtualization is almost done, that having said..hang on, lets do it even better and make a "Year of" game: 2007-2008: Year of Integration : Here you will experience massive deployments of virtual infrastructure. Obviously you have to be nuts to think that virtualization is going to last forever, it won't even last the next two years. Why? simply because VMware is hell-bent on that next level strategy. Here it will use the "curve-ball strategic maneuver" to take the market into...well, the next level! 2008-2010: Year(s) of Enterprise Applications : Here the application stacks will be totally revamped, redone and deployable with concepts such as "Virtual Appliances". VA will reach the inflection point by then. That is why it makes sense for VMware to go for Apps now! 2008-2009: Year of Monitoring : Or call it management, no matter what you as the IT director, I...

Following the SAP's BO purchase, Oracle too made its move: Oracle Corp., the third-largest software company, made a hostile $6.7 billion bid to buy BEA Systems Inc., sending shares of the business-program maker above the offer price on speculation rival suitors will emerge. BEA stock jumped 38 percent to $18.82, topping the $17-a- share cash bid. Oracle's proposal is 25 percent more than yesterday's closing price as Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison pursues growth through acquisitions. BEA rejected the offer, saying it ``significantly'' undervalued the company. Bloomberg

Having snuggled up to VMware, the proprietary and expensive virtualization platform, BEA Systems is going to the other extreme by officially backing Xen. The middleware vendor is working to certify its recently launched WebLogic Server Virtual Edition against the free, open source Xen hypervisor by the end of this year. Guy Churchward, BEA vice president of engineering, told The Register WebLogic Server Virtual Edition is already running on Xen in BEA's labs, and it's just a question of certification and whether Xen can become "enterprise grade" in time. "I'd look to certification and support against Xen by the end of the year, subject to the fact we feel comfortable with this stuff," Churchward said during a recent interview. Certification would expand WebLogic Server Virtual Edition's platform reach, "because a lot of companies are developing and working against certification in Xen." Link

Love the BEA folks for that! Love them for a lot more reasons! BEA Systems, Inc., a world leader in enterprise infrastructure software, today announced new performance results and unveiled major product plans that will help the company expand its leadership role in Java virtualization and further execute on its Liquid Enterprise vision. According to early lab test results jointly conducted by BEA and Intel, LiquidVM(TM) -- the foundational technology behind WebLogic Server(R) Virtual Edition, runs Java over two times more efficiently than using the normal OS-based software stack on VMware Infrastructure. Because LiquidVM runs directly on top of the VMware ESX Server hypervisor platform without a traditional OS, it can manage memory resources for Java applications much more efficiently than the alternative OS model. This can help enable customers to increase hardware utilization and thereby reduce TCO. This approach to enterprise Java virtualization is unique in the industry; no other p...

Losing the operating system has several benefits. Many OS services are already duplicated by Java or the hypervisor, and BEA estimates that cutting the OS can reduce consumption of system resources such as memory and CPU cycles by 25% to 50%. It also simplifies management, as WLS-VE knows it's being virtualized and so can more easily map software processes to the hardware it's running on. Performance can improve, as a complete OS doesn't have to be loaded whenever a virtual machine is started. Still, though WLS-VE shipped in July, its Liquid Operations Control management system won't be available until December. Performance claims haven't yet been proved and will depend on using hardware with virtualization support baked in--without it, VMware simply takes the place of the OS. I have pesonally started a question in the LinkedIn Q&A, feel free to voice your opinions there, and original article is here .