Oracle/BEA

While lots of folks maligned BEA for holding out on Oracle, good for them and their investors as Oracle comes back with a better offer.  Oracle investors will benefit from its far more efficient SG&A - almost 20% lower basis points than BEA.

As for customers, this continues to validate my comments about Oracle middleware I wrote after OpenWorld.  Oracle appears to have lost the art of developing new product and the fear is it will freeze or regress BEA R&D productivity - at overpriced maintenance since little of the economies will likely be passed along.

Customers, unlike investors, do not have much to cheer.