ORACLE Middleware

Oracle Fusion Middleware (OFM) is a portfolio of software products, produced by Oracle, that spans multiple services, including J2EE and developer tools, integration services, business intelligence, collaboration, and content management. OFM is based on open standards such as BPEL, SOAP, XML and JMS.[1] Many of the products included under the Oracle Fusion Middleware banner are not themselves middleware products, Fusion Middleware essentially being a rebranding of many of Oracle's products outside of their core database and applications software offerings. According to Oracle, by 2006 over 30,000 organizations were Fusion Middleware customers, including over 35 of the world's 50 largest companies and more than 750 of the BusinessWeek Global 1000, with OFM also supported by 7,500 partners.[2]

Oracle Fusion Middleware is designed to support development, deployment, and management of Service-Oriented Architecture. It includes what Oracle calls "Hot-Pluggable" architecture, which allows users to leverage existing investments in applications and systems from other software vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, and SAP AG.[3] Oracle will also leverage what is called configurable network computing, (CNC) techology that it got from its combined PeopleSoft and JDEdwards acquisition in 2005. Oracle Fusion Applications are under development based on Oracle Fusion Middleware.

HP, in order to provide standards-based software to assist with business process automation, have incorporated OFM into their Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) portfolio.[4]

In January 2008, Oracle Universal Content Management won InfoWorld's Technology of the Year award for "Best Enterprise Content Manager", with Oracle SOA Suite also winning the award for "Best Enterprise Service Bus".[5]

In 2007, Gartner said "OFM has reached a degree of completeness that puts it on par with, and in some cases ahead of, competing software stacks", reporting revenue from the suite of over $1bn US during FY06, estimating the revenue from the genuinely middleware aspects at $740M.[6]