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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.