It has been a while since I had the “WOW-effect” about a new application.

Most internet applications have been set-up with technologies that we find normal nowadays. Technologies like partial page refresh (AJAX), drag and drop layout, WEB 2.0 like wiki, communities etc.

But these rules do not seem not to apply to ERP systems. They are still robust, pretty user-unfriendly en most of all not appealing.

Well, Oracle seems to have done it.

Oracle introduced a new layout with Peoplesoft 9.1 in combination with Peopletools 8.50, with building blocks of today’s technologies.

What IBM couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do, Oracle just did (or wanted more): buying the billions of dollars worth Sun Microsystems during the current crisis: for…7.4 billion dollars!

Although both companies have a lot of overhead in software and hardware, especially Java and Solaris will be very important for Oracle: the Fusion Middleware is heavily leaning on Java and Solaris is the most important platform for the Oracle database.

Some interesting developments will be on the hardware front: Oracle started working with Dell and HP on the hardware/server market. Sun has a big stake in this market already.

And what will Oracle do (or won’t do) with MySQL, the incredible popular OpenSource database, which powers this and millions of other websites?