More Market Consolidation

-- Posted by Carole-Ann

We were all waiting for Oracle to respond to the IBM acquisition of Ilog.  Here it is.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081029/aqw128.html

With the Haley acquisition, Oracle joins the BRMS party.  Oddly enough, they went for one of the smaller players.  As you may or may not know, Haley (recently acquired by RuleBurst, previously known as Softlaw) has been focusing on natural language.

They have been mostly successful in Government as far as I know, but we never really competed with them head to head.  This makes me wonder what to expect in terms of positioning...  Are they going to keep focusing on their niche market?  Are they going to invest in the product to make it more "like the others"?  Were is it going to fit?

Now we know why Haley did not show up at Business Rules Forum this year!

Comments

[Aleksander Dragnes]

The acquisition might have something to do with the fact that Haley already has been embedded in Siebel.

http://www.oracle.com/applications/crm/siebel/crm-technology/business-rules.html

--
Aleksander

[Carole-Ann Matignon]

Touche.

[Pamela Johnson]

Well, it took Oracle a few acquisitions to get it right on the app server side.

I wonder if they will also make a few BRMS acquisitions before getting the right one, the BEA of rules!

[Carole-Ann Matignon]

Good point, Pam. So you think Oracle is not done yet? How many BRMS are they going to absorb? Is Haley just a hors d'oeuvre?

[Wilbur]

Looks like the press release does not mention Fusion... Makes you wonder...

[Phil]

Disclaimer: I am an Oracle employee and work on the Oracle Business Rules product.

The official statement from Oracle is here: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/017631_EN

As stated above, Haley is already used by Oracle Siebel products, and will continue to be used in that regard.

Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g will ship with Oracle Business Rules, and is the engine used by default in the decision component for BPEL processes.