This is all about control. Oracle will sell you an all-you-can-eat license...then capture the maintenance revenue--which is almost pure profit--and then you got access to the customer for up-selling and all the growth potential.

He's trying to send a message to them about the way he expects them to behave. It's sort of a veiled threat.

Before they started acquiring companies, Oracle's E-Business suite was number three behind SAP and PeopleSoft, and if you want to be competitive you cannot be satisfied with number three.

Iona's business is integration and it always has been, that's what we do.

They were up front and straightforward. There is still a lot of work to be done. There are still a lot of things that could go wrong. They have taken on an enormous task.

They may no longer view Red Hat as a reliable partner.

Push is a fact. It exists, ... But it has become just a part of Microsoft's product line.

Business logic changes all the time. This is what our clients are struggling with now.

We used to talk about open systems compared to very proprietary systems like the AS/400 where you could only get it from one vendor. It just isn't the same type of discussion any more.

Ultimately it comes down to the market and developers voting with their dollars.