BEA, Oracle Users Fear Price Hikes, Product Line Cuts

摘要

Oracle corp.'s agreement to buy BEA Systems Inc. for $8.5 billion prompted users of both firms' products to express fears of price increases and product consolidation. The BEA board agreed to the deal last week, three months after it had spurned Oracle's earlier $6.7 billion bid for the middleware vendor. Burc Oral, a senior architect at government contractor CellExchange Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., said that on the positive side, the deal will make it possible for users to buy databases and application servers from a single vendor. On the other hand, Oral anticipates that it will cause some confusion for BEA users because of technology overlap.