So here we are on the day (or a day later) that Sun (JAVA) decides to buy MySQL, finally putting a blow against Oracle who had self selected Linux (personal opinion was Oracle saw the deal having the same money, just less for the OS, so more for them) and BEA gets welded to the Oracle Fusion integration story.

Consolidation is indeed the way forward... unless the European Union think that there is too few companies in which case companies will have to give away some corporate asset in order to not be too successful.  The article is worth a read.. will everything eventually be owned by Microsoft, Google, Oracle or Symantec ?

YEAR END - In memoriam: the ISV

By James Niccolai and Chris Kanaracus, IDG News Service, 12/12/07

The world of business software continued its inexorable march toward Total Consolidation in 2007. If IBM was off the mark in 1943 when it (supposedly) predicted a world with only five computers, it might have better luck today with a similar prediction about the software industry.

The trend has been under way for years, but the past 12 months saw many of the remaining big names in business software absorbed into other companies, including Hyperion, Business Objects, Cognos, Opsware and webMethods. They join PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards and JBoss from the recent past. Outside of security companies, it is now difficult to name even a half dozen well-known, best-of-breed vendors that are holding their own.

YEAR END - In memoriam: the ISV - Network World

Working in the ISV "space" I can tell you that new ventures are coming along just fine and growing well.  Yes, some bigger fish gobble some of the smaller fish, but many still swim freely in the sea, making money and changing the world.

ttfn

David