Oracle buys BEA

The next big deal only a few hours later:
Oracle buys BEA

Charles Philips (President of Oracle) says:

The addition of BEA is expected to accelerate innovation by bringing together two companies with a common vision of a modern service-oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure and will further increase the value that Oracle delivers to its customers and partners.

and

After the closing, Oracle intends to preserve and enhance customers’ investments in BEA products as Oracle has done with its other acquisitions, while Fusion Middleware will continue to be the center of Oracle’s current and future middleware and applications strategy. After the closing, BEA customers can continue to use their existing BEA products going forward, or choose to use Oracle and BEA products as part of the ongoing evolution of Fusion Middleware. Either way, it will be the customer’s choice.

Oracle pays 8.500.000.000$ for this deal. Not bad...
I think, i should buy a software company, too ;-)

But joking aside: Is Oracle really continuing its Application Server? Or will they switch to BEA? Time will tell us....