Why WebSphere? Blog

Following Oracle’s acquisition of Sun it was determined, to no one’s surprise, that the Java CAPS middleware suite was not a strategic middleware platform and would be eventually moved to a “sustain” mode for support (in the interim support costs are likely to rise).  What this means to Java CAPS customers is that they would see little or no new investment in the platform.  This raises questions of what they should do about new IT projects (e.g., do you continue to invest development effort in an effectively defunct SOA infrastructure?) as well as the value of the subscription and support dollars currently being spent on the Java CAPS platform.

Oracle would of course prefer to see these customers move to SOA Suite, but despite many promises to deliver migration tooling has done little to bridge the gap from Java CAPS (and especially e-Gate).  Java CAPS customers are essentially left with the choice to throw out their code investments by starting over with a new platform, which brings with it a host of new challenges (new skills to develop, business risk and potential interruptions, etc.).

What many Java CAPS clients are now discovering is that IBM not only offers a robust SOA platform alternative, but they have now delivered a migration toolset that is capable of preserving their investments in Java CAPS Collaboration and ETD/OTD assets by parsing and recreating that same code into the WebSphere target environment.  Combine this toolkit with other assets such as WebSphere Support Pac IAM6, and you can see that IBM is willing to make investments to help customers running Java CAPS where Oracle has not.

With new version 8 capabilities, industry specific accelerators, and WebSphere Message Broker’s new packaging options that provide low cost entry points with the same reliability and robust scalability, it is not surprising that more Java CAPS customers are stepping back to consider their options.