Let’s hope Marten and team can help Sun realize that there is value in software…good software, not the stuff that was 5th in class, and remains so after open sourcing it.

Oracle also announced it will acquire BEA for $8.5 Bil, a higher price than Larry rejected a little while back. The deal also represents 8% of Oracle’s current market cap (~$109 bil).

The software industry continues to consolidate. Next question…When will Oracle buy Sun?

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The off again, on again pursuit finally came to an end when BEA announced its board had unanimously accepted Oracle’s offer. Discussions between the two companies became rancorous, as both firms fired off public volleys criticizing each other.

That’s all water under the proverbial bridge now. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said in a statement that Oracle Fusion middleware has an open ‘hot-pluggable’ architecture that allows customers the option of coupling BEA’s WebLogic Java Server to virtually all the components of the Fusion software suite.

Customers will get that opportunity possibly by mid-2008, when the two sides expect the deal to close. That opportunity looked like it could be a long time in coming late last year.

In October 2007, Oracle offered BEA $17 per share, a $6.66 billion valuation at the time. BEA subsequently rejected that offer, and held out for a better deal.

Once in place, BEA gives Oracle and Fusion a stronger product to go up against IBM in the application serving space. Both IBM and Oracle will woo potential middleware customers on the strength of their software stacks, which should give IBM customers a wedge in negotiating with Big Blue.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/oracle-closes-bea-deal-for-85-billion-2008-01/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/bea-flips-off-oracle-offer-2007-10 http://www.webpronews.com/bea-flips-off-oracle-offer-2007-10#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:46:05 +0000 WebProNews Staff http://www.webpronews.com/?p=41077 A 25 percent premium for BEA in an all-cash offer from Oracle elicited a mild chuckle from BEA’s VP of business planning and development, William Klein.

$6.66 billion won’t be enough to yank BEA into the Oracle fold. After Oracle made an offer to BEA today, Klein responded with a polite letter that likely concealed a hearty laugh from BEA’s principals.

“It is apparent to our Board, however, that BEA is worth substantially more to Oracle, to others and, importantly, to our shareholders than the price indicated in your letter,” Klein said in his public response to Oracle president Charles Phillips.

Just what BEA may be worth is something of a mystery. As Klein noted in his letter, BEA is not current with its SEC filings.

“We believe that the absence of current financial information in the public markets limits investor visibility into our performance,” said Klein.

BEA noted in a public statement that they sent this response letter to Oracle before Oracle’s bid was published this morning.

MarketWatch noted investor Carl Icahn has a significant stake in BEA. Icahn wants BEA sold, and he stands to make $200 million in the deal.

That wouldn’t sound at all remarkable, except that the other company is Google. Together, it and BEA would “create mashups between enterprise portals and applications such as Google Maps.”

Upon digging deeper into the BEA site, it becomes obvious that the company has its foot in some pretty important doors. Intel, HP, and Siebel are counted among its “strategic partners.” “Premier partners” include Fujitsu Services Limited, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Symantec. Not bad at all.

And now there’s the news of BEA’s talks with Google.

Andy McCue covered the story in an article that appeared on CNET, and wrote, “As part of the partnership, BEA will get access to some of Google’s hidden application programming interfaces (APIs), which will allow developers to create mashups using a new technology feature in BEA’s WebLogic Portal, called Adrenaline.”

McCue also quoted Skip Sauls, the senior product manager for WebLogic Portal at BEA.

Sauls described Adrenaline, saying, “It allows you to take those applications and expose them to a Web 2.0 front end but still manage them within the portal environment. It runs on the WebLogic Portal server, so you still have access to all the freedoms, personalization and security, but you can render in a different fashion.”

The Download Squad’s Chris Gilmer seemed optimistic about the possible partnership.

“Google mashups are hot stuff, and many people are taking advantage of the Google Maps API to create map masterpieces that either showcase their interests, or show us where their business locations are,” he noted. Of course, “there have been no outcomes reported yet” regarding this particular effort.

BEA seems to be a pretty interesting company, though, even if rather few people have heard of it, and Google almost always has something up its sleeve.

Hopefully a collaboration between the two, if it happens, will be fruitful.

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The partnership between middleware company BEA and database maker Ingres presents service-oriented architecture (SOA) developers on Eclipse another option for building their applications.

Both firms have made trial versions of their software available for download. Ingres also provides a Community Edition of their database with licensing under the GNU General Public License version 2.

BEA Workshop Studio comes with a 15-day trial, and can be downloaded using the Express option if Eclipse is already in place on the workstation. A JDBC connector in the latest versions of Workshop Studio allows for easy connectivity to Ingres through the DbXplorer tool.

Once added and tested, the objects available in the Ingres database come into view. Then, the various features of Workshop Studio as well as Eclipse can be used against those objects.

Current users of Ingres r3 who want to try out Workshop Studio will need to download the latest Ingres JDBC Driver that comes with Ingres 2006. Support for trial users of the software packages can get help on BEA’s forums.

The BEA arrangement represents the first ISV partnership for the now-independent Ingres. As part of developing a blended open source strategy, Ingres provides services and donations of its source code, while commercial vendors like BEA add value with their product lines and certification of a combined solution.

Eclipse’s popularity only contributes to the potential effectiveness of such pairings. With Workshop Studio available as a plug-in to Eclipse, and JDBC connectivity to Ingres as part of the package, the deal makes the offer more appealing to developers who are considering SOA-development options in the workplace.

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Specifically, the new product is intended for those still employing or maintaining older ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) code used before the advent of J2EE (and perhaps Java itself) – especially among government agencies who set up their C++ based systems in the early 90′s.

San Jose, Calif.-based BEA Systems Inc. licensed the BlueDragon software form New Atlanta Communications, based in Alpharetta, GA, and is bundled with BEA WebLogic.

A runtime server technology allowing CFML to be transferred onto J2EE servers, developers can make use of BlueDragon for WebLogic, Microsoft .NET, and IBM WebSphere.

The ability to redeploy legacy code onto WebLogic, says BEA, will save costly code rewrites and increase efficiency. Promising to give frozen IT assets “a new life,” is intended to accelerate the delivery of service-oriented architectures.

“Several of our customers are still using CFML to run their businesses. said Wai Wong, executive vice president of products, BEA Systems. “It’s also another example of how the company is continuing to invest in WebLogic Server and find new ways to help customers get to a modern app server without a lot of pain.”

Government agencies, like the Georgia Department of Transportation, are looking forward to updating old programming.

“BlueDragon is an incredibly valuable application for us,” said Doug Chambers, IT applications administrator, Georgia Department of Transportation.

“By utilizing BlueDragon, we have been able to standardize our enterprise architecture and leverage, modernize and extend legacy applications throughout our IT systems without costly investments. We’re excited by the extensive product evolution possibilities that having a big, reputable company like BEA stand behind affords.”

The BEA WebLogic Edition of BlueDragon can be downloaded here.

ColdFusion, developed in the earliest days of the Worldwide Web, was sold to Macromedia in 2001, which was later acquired by Adobe Systems. Adobe offers a Java rewrite application called ColdFusion MX7 for SOA.

The specifications are made up of protocol and policy assertions, to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for further review and finalization as a Web services standard. Using feedback from across the industry, the co-authors proposed a technical committee and charter to enable further review and industry collaboration on the proposed standard.

WS-RM has received broad industry support with a number of implementations beyond the authoring companies stemming from a series of workshops for feedback, with the most recent workshop having been held April 13–14, 2005. Many other companies and organizations, including Actional, Adobe, Arjuna, Blue Titan, Choreology, Ericsson, IONA, OAGi, Reactivity, Sonic, Sun Microsystems, Systinet, webMethods, the U.K. government, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, support the launch of this effort in OASIS.

“Our customers will benefit from the functions that WS-RM provides as they develop more secure, reliable business applications based on Web services,” said Karla Norsworthy, vice president of software standards at IBM. “With this technology, delivery of messages between partners, suppliers and customers can be assured in an efficient and scalable way that will support both enterprise-level applications utilizing middleware and simpler point-to-point applications. With the submission to OASIS, we look forward to further industry contributions and adoption.”

The co-authors are committed to the development of open industry standards to help drive widespread adoption of Web services and will not charge royalties in conjunction with WS-RM. The co-authors are looking forward to future collaboration in helping to bring together a more cohesive and composable Web services architecture.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

One solution is to leverage our time by doing the “wooing” once and then let that effort live on forever in a virtual format. It is about creating multiple products, programs, or streams of income from the core of our business that can sell and propagate without our direct intervention!

But how do we do that?

By using the up and coming medium of teleclasses!

By leading teleclasses (classes by telephone) you can leverage your classes in a way which will increase your productivity and the profitability of your business while becoming highly visible in your field or profession. You can become the expert in your field — the “go to” person! This article will provide you with ten ways to leverage your teleclasses for maximum visibility and for driving thousands of customers to your door. If you would like to know more about what a telelcass is and how it can support your business, download this audio “What is a Teleclass?”:

http://www.blipstudios.com/bea/teleclass_audio/teleclass_str eaming.rm

(1) Create audio recordings of your teleclasses.

Using a digital recording device such as the DM-1 Recorder by Olympus or a recording service such as Maklitel.com, you can capture your teleclasses on audio, which can be leveraged in multiple ways. This recording can be used as:

-A free download on your website (people love added value and a way to get to know you when they visit your site)

-A fee-based download (The going rate for a one hour download is approximately $19.00)

-A recording transferred to a CD and used as a business card (people love to have great content to listen to as they drive or walk)

(2) Combine several teleclasses, including recordings and written content, and create an online digital library.

An online digital library is a wonderful way to allow people the opportunity to buy a lifetime, annual, or month to month membership to your teleclass programs. Many people are unable to attend the teleclasses due to time constraints, so an online library will allow people the ability to experience your teleclasses in a self-study format. I recommend that you develop 20 solid teleclasses, record each teleclass, and combine the recordings with written content converted to PDF form, before opening your library. From here you will want to continue adding new content to the library each month to keep people interested and jazzed enough about what you are offering that they re-subscribe from year to year or month to month.

(3) Turn your teleclasses into an article(s) for online and hard copy publications.

Teleclasses are a wonderful opportunity to build written content which you can share with your target audience in the form of an article or press release. By writing articles, you can take the content from your teleclasses and put it into a format which positions you as an expert in the media. This article you are reading is taken from a telelcass by the title of “Leveraging Your Teleclasses for Long-Term Sustainability”, and I am submitting this in multiple locations on the internet and to several hard copy magazines. The great thing about article writing is that your written word is then disseminated to thousands of people around the globe who are in the market for the products and services you are offering.

(4) Take the content from your teleclass, and develop a 7-10 week e-course.

Marketing studies show that it takes 7-10 touches with a client before he or she will buy from you. By writing a 7-10 week e-course (a weekly lesson delivered by e-mail) you can drop valuable tips which are related to your teleclasses into the inboxes of your target market. Make sure to include information on your upcoming teleclasses in your e-course, and create an active link in the course so that folks know how they can purchase a product or a program from you in the future.

(5) Develop and sell assessments based on the content from your teleclasses.

People LOVE assessments, because they provide valuable insight into their needs, wants, strengths and shortcomings. A well-designed assessment can give you an instant connection to your target market and can position you as an expert in the marketplace. I highly recommend Assessment Generator for a professional looking template that is user friendly and very attractive. To learn more, take the assessment Are You Ready to Lead Teleclasses by visiting this assessment: “Are You Born to Lead Teleclassses?” The link is here:

http://www.fivestarleader.com/AreYouBornToLeadTeleclasses.htm

(6) Use a teleclass as the basis of a workshop.

A well written teleclass can provide a great outline for a workshop, and with very little effort, you will have a live presentation you can market to your target audience. You can customize the teleclass to integrate the language and address the needs of your audience. The core of your teleclass will not changejust the way it is packaged and presented.

(7) Use your teleclasses as a basis for a radio or television interview.

Many radio and television talk show hosts are always on the lookout for guest experts for their shows who can provide them with valuable content for their listening audience. A great way to proceed is to transfer your teleclass to a CD and send this to as many radio and television talk show hosts as possible.

(8) Create a strategic alliance/fusion marketing alliance.

The strategic alliance is one of the most economically feasible and effective ways to reach your target audience and to make a big impact with your teleclasses. By forming a strategic alliance with businesses who are working with your target audience, you will be able to disseminate your teleclsses to a wider audience at a much lower cost. This approach will increase your visibility and will make you appear stronger to your market. An example might be:

You align yourself with a group of attorneys who provide legal services to your target market. You ask them to give your teleclass information to others, and in return, you send them business when a client needs legal services. It is that simple.

(9) Use your teleclasses to create a voice mail “Tip of the Day”.

Make the most of voice mail and answering machines by posting a message that says “WOW!” Take the information from your teleclasses, turn the content into quick tips, and add a “tip of the day” on your message tape. This approach can prove to be highly entertaining and educational to callers, as well as a credibility and rapport builder for you. Tie this message back into your teleclasses as a way to generate interest by announcing upcoming calls or offerings on your website.

(10) Combine your teleclasses with those of your clients, colleagues, and prospects.

Combined programs are usually much more robust and interesting than programs offered by a single individual. By collaborating with your clients, colleagues, and prospects, you have the opportunity to strengthen relationships with others and create something incredible that you can leverage later.

This article was co-authored by Bea Fields and Roger
DeWitt. Bea is and Executive Coach and the Visionary
Leader for the Teleclass Leaders Learning Club. Roger is a
Business Coach and the Community Coach for

http://www.TeleclassLeader.com.