BEA falls to Oracle

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:05

IT Industry - Strategy

Oracle has reached a definitive agreement to acquire middleware specialist BEA.

The $US8.5 billion deal is expected to be completed by the middle of 2008, subject to the usual approvals and conditions.

BEA chairman and CEO Alfred Chuang said the company had been discussing a possible takeover for several months. The board believes the acquisition "is in the best interests of our shareholders," he added.

"The addition of BEA products and technology will significantly enhance and extend Oracle's Fusion middleware software suite," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Oracle Fusion middleware has an open hot-pluggable architecture that allows customers the option of coupling BEA's WebLogic Java Server to virtually all the components of the Fusion software suite."