Oracle and Enterprise 2.0

An interesting article written by Renee Ferguson from eWeek came across my inbox this morning, it discussed Oracle’s plan to add Enterprise 2.0 features to its middleware platform Fusion. In the ever-going rivalry between giants like Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and BEA, there is a chance Oracle could be leading the race to enable Web 2.0 applications via their middleware platforms. This is what Thomas Kurian, Oracle senior vice president, had to say on Tuesday’s Oracle OpenWorld conference:

"Oracle's Enterprise 2.0 vision is to bring capabilities users are familiar with—wikis, blogs, RSS, discussion forums, social networks—to enterprise applications using a standards-based programming model that allows you to mix and match services with information systems."

The basis of this technology lies within the Oracle Universal Content Manager. Documents of different kinds can be stored, managed, and even filtered here. A new functionality which I found particularly interesting is the ability to build a full text search on documents so that search engines can search and find documents. Some might ask the question how is Oracle able to lead the way in enabling Enterprise 2.0 applications in their middleware platforms… Well, within the past 45 months Oracle has acquired 41 different companies, and so they have accumulated quite a number of innovative software technology and applications.

Even though we are still not there yet in terms of taking full advantage of Enterprise 2.0 applications, it seems as if Oracle is making some progress. As organizations realize the importance of collaboration through wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and other Web 2.0 technologies, the competition will only get more intense. Read the full article to get the full scoop. Who do you think will come out on top?