Fears Oracle Will Drop Product Support Unjustified

Implications: * No one can be forced to migrate * Oracle is a business and so long as it can make money supporting products it will do so which is good news for investors. * As the industry consolidates into an oligopoly the amount it will charge for support will increase which is better news for investors.

Analysis: Customer fears that Oracle will drop support for acquired products is irrational. As long as there is a dollar to be made from support, Oracle will be there to collect it. This is especially true since software as a service has made support of legacy systems one of the most profitable businesses in the software industry.

The fear that Oracle's acquisition of BEA will blunt work on updating application is also unfounded. Oracle is not so much a company as a group of warring tribes. BEA will become just one more clan on the war path.

On the the other hand customer fears that they will pay exorbitant maintenance costs is very justified. Recent acquisitions, some by Oracle and some by competitors promise to make enterprize software an oligopoly center around three stacks - an Oracle stack, a Microsoft stack, and a open source stack. As any student of economics will tell you, an oligopoly usually results higher prices for customers.

But at the end of the day migration is not something a vendor, even one as powerful as Oracle, can force on customers under the old perpetual premise based license model. If press hard enough customers will drop support or get it from third parties.