OOW 2007: Christmas Present from Oracle for Developers (11g Fusion Middleware…. Preview Release)

Today, during Thomas Kurian’s keynote session at Oracle Develop, a gift for the holidays was promised: before it’s Christmas, Oracle will put a Technology Preview of its 11g Fusion Middleware stack on OTN, with WebCenter, Coherence, the latest in BPEL, ADF 11g Rich Client Components and more. Whether or not the SCA based Service Infrastructure is part of the preview or the MDS, I am not sure. But it is an interesting package all the same, if only for the latest WebCenter stuff. It seems that WebCenter is a key component in most of the upcoming Fusion Application’s functionality!

Note that while this present is nice, it actually also tells us that the production release of 11g Fusion Middleware isn’t exactly around the corner. I had no very specific expectations for 11g, but my hopes were more like early 2008. Official statements from Oracle – and even the unofficial ones I have been getting – say only Calendar Year 2008. No specifics. At the present I would not put any money on getting the software anmy earlier than Q3 of Calendar Year 2008, possibly even later in the year.