Oracle, the applications company
Oct 19th 2009vesterli.NET & Application Express & BPEL & Conferences & Oracle ADF & Oracle Portal
Leaving the details of the individual sessions aside, the impression from this year’s OpenWorld is that of a shift in Oracle’s perception of themselves.
Oracle used to present itself as a technology company that happened to use its technology to build applications. Now, Oracle is an applications company that happens to build some technology (software and hardware) as needed for its applications.
This was evident from the main keynotes that focused almost exclusively on Oracle applications present and future. There was no mention of any news in either database or middleware - this was relegated to the smaller Oracle Develop sub-conference. Looking at the tag cloud in the official Schedule Builder, you search in vain for any mention of PL/SQL or Application Express - even Fusion Development (ADF) get only a small mention.
For a developer this means:
- The core products used for Oracle applications (Fusion/ADF/BPEL) will be around for a very long time.
- The non-core products (ODP.NET, Application Express, etc.) will live only as long as there is a significant community using them.
This does not mean that either ODP.NET or APEX is going away (both have strong communities), but it means that it is up to the developer community to keep Oracle interested in these products.
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