BEA growth in Q3, but...
BEA announced 19% year-on-year growth in revenues for 3Q06 - very nice! Apparently SOA is a big driver of this growth, with AquaLogic contributing more than 20% of license revenues. I also noticed that license revenue grew 12%, while services grew 24%.
Now, I know that BEA will probably argue that SOA initiatives go deeper in project terms than some of its other product areas, and therefore there is more scope for services. But I can't help a nagging feeling that if a software company renowned for its standards-based products is growing its services revenues twice as fast as its license fees, this reflects somehow on product complexity, ease of use and intuitiveness. Maybe I am just too suspicious.
Steve
It is interesting to compare BEA's results with IBM's. IBM grew software licenses faster than services revenue - and clearly IBM would also claim lots of SOA projects.
My opinion is that BEA has been playing catch up in the SOA space - and must catch up as it will face greater and greater problems as the JEE market matures. Already, BEA's premium JEE position has come under increasing price pressure from open source on the one hand and increasing realisation that most projects don't need the full feature set provided (and paid for!).
At some point, BEA will face the moment of truth faced by any company whose success is built on a single technology wave: how to jump waves without ending up in the water. Unfortunately, the return to core values (focus on the app server) in 2004 after senior level departures signalled the potential beginning of the end - even though that strategy has been dilluted since then.
Time will tell but I wouldn't bet my house on BEA.
Posted by: Ronan Bradley | November 17, 2006 at 01:25 AM