Oracle Mobile Platform · The result was Oracle’s late 2013 announcement of the Oracle Mobile Platform, ... tools via Oracle ESB, ... architecture support Yes Node.js language

Product Intelligence Report

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Oracle Mobile PlatformMobile Enterprise Application Platforms

June 30, 2014

J Summary

Competitive Strengths• Oracle Mobile Platform provides various developer framework and MEAP suite options• Oracle leverages SOA Foundation to provide mobile service integration • New MBaaS offering via Mobile Cloud Service targets new developer communities• MAF caters to traditional Java developers and supports HTML5/JavaScript app development• MEAP strategy leverages the elasticity of Exalogic engineered system• CAF plays a large role in mobility, providing the backend cloud infrastructure

Competitive Weaknesses• Oracle is late to market with a MEAP strategy/offering• Oracle’s comprehensive mobile portfolio requires significant investment• Channel involvement is unclear at this time around Oracle’s MEAP offering

Current Perspective: Very StrongOracle has only officially entered the MEAP space in the last several months, significantly later than key ap-plication platform and MEAP rivals IBM and SAP, as Oracle chose to take a different course from its peers. Oracle looks at mobility as being part of an omni-channel, where mobile apps leverage existing backend integration and security technologies to integrate with its backend servers, databases, and enterprise app platforms. Rather than acquire mobile app platforms technology as competitors have, Oracle is extend-

Charlotte Dunlap Current Analysis Senior Analyst, Application Platforms



ing its enterprise middleware solutions to mobile apps leveraging its mature backend integration services, security, and tools in an effort to attract and support mobile developers.

The result was Oracle’s late 2013 announcement of the Oracle Mobile Platform, currently consist-ing of components from Oracle’s flagship Fusion Middleware technology as well as ADF Mobile, which are packaged as a standalone product called Oracle Mobile Application Framework (MAF). With MAF, Oracle is emphasizing the ability to support both web and mobile development, while Oracle Mobile Platform includes a more comprehensive offering including security, mobile applica-tion management, MBaaS, mobile web development, content management, and website manage-ment. The MEAP is offered in both on-premises and cloud versions.

Oracle Mobile Platform also includes Oracle Mobile Suite (and Oracle Mobile Security – not discussed in this report). Mobile Suite is aimed at helping developers take their existing enterprise applications and mobilize them, or build new mobile apps, whether they are custom or packaged apps. It includes mobile client development technology; data source integration tools from Oracle enterprise service bus, which has been extended to create and shape REST JSON services; integrat-ed security with single sign-on (SSO) and adaptive access management and governance; integration with Oracle’s Mobile Security Suite for MAM and other third-party MDM/MAM vendors; deploy-ment; and management capabilities. Mobile Suite is targeted specifically at on-premises delivery.

Oracle has made tremendous strides in recent months not only in articulating its mobile strategy, but also in breaking out mobile components, such as Mobile Platform, so that channel partners (e.g., SIs) can access them without having to purchase the company’s broader middleware platform. Oracle continues to strengthen its mobile messaging, announcing earlier this year a new MBaaS offering, referred to as the Oracle Mobile Cloud Service, which will become available this sum-mer. Oracle differentiates from traditional BaaS, MBaaS, and MEAP providers by leveraging its enterprise-grade technologies, such as Oracle SOA architecture and identity management. It sees customers in the finance and banking arenas as key targets for its on-premises backend integration capabilities and mobile services.

Oracle is offering its middleware, database, and now Oracle Mobile Platform as part of a private cloud in the data center through Exalogic integrated systems and as part of a public cloud through Oracle Cloud. Oracle’s go-to-market strategy is to demonstrate to its traditional customers how to mobilize their vast portfolio of Oracle applications. This has been enabled over the years through Oracle’s progress in its efforts to integrate key mobile components into the Fusion Middleware platform, including WebSockets, JSON, security capabilities, and API management. Oracle’s ability to offer a comprehensive mobile app development environment will help it to differentiate and attract the attention of CIOs as enterprises continue to adopt mobile applications and mobile app platforms. Its ability to offer core components, including middleware, database, mobile, and infrastructure, in the cloud (and as a managed service) opens up options for its customers’ DevOps teams as they venture into challenging new application development territory.

Now Oracle must continue to prove its commitment to mobility and reaching a broader developer audience beyond Fusion users, especially considering how late it is to the game. How well Oracle executes on its new technology offering, including establishing channel programs with attrac-tive licensing models that will attract SIs and service providers, will determine its success in this competitive market segment.

Target MarketsSmall to Medium Enterprises, Large Enterprises, Global 2000

Product:

Oracle Mobile Platform

Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms



J Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths• Oracle Mobile Platform consists of components of Fusion, Mobile Application Frame-work (MAF), and ADF Faces. Oracle places heavy emphasis on its framework’s ability to support integrated web and mobile development for true omni-channel marketing (supporting systems of engagement). Mobile Platform includes Oracle Mobile Suite, which helps developers mobilize existing enterprise applications or build new mobile apps. It includes development technology; data source integration tools via Oracle ESB, for rapid creation of mobile-centric REST APIs; security; deployment; and management capabilities (on-premises).

• Oracle fields one of the most comprehensive enterprise application infrastructures in the industry, spanning database, applications, and application platforms including SOA Foundation, which represents Oracle’s mobile service integration. Mobile integration was enabled through Oracle’s support for REST services/APIs. Oracle’s mobile technology fits well into its SOA archi-tectural model from a high level, providing for inevitable growth enterprises may experience in the way of infrastructure (i.e., in-memory computing), security (including identity management and perimeter security of APIs), or backend data access. Oracle API Gateway helps ensure security on-premises or in the cloud by managing access to APIs.

• Oracle is taking the mobile app platform it has developed over the past 12 months and now offering it as a cloud service to ensure a smoother development process: for example, through WebLogic Server clusters to provide elasticity. The new MBaaS offering, referred to as the Oracle Mobile Cloud Service, differentiates from traditional BaaS, MBaaS, and MEAP solutions by leveraging Oracle’s enterprise-grade technologies. Since the mobile service eases app development and deployment by including connectivity and security, Oracle sees it as a way to go after new developer communities.

• Mobile Application Framework aims to tackle issues with slow performing mobile apps built using HTML5, versus native code. Oracle chalks this dilemma up to Java-heavy experienced enterprise developers (lacking mobile skills), so it is leveraging those skillsets through declarative de-velopment of HTML5 and JavaScript components via its mobile development tools, both Eclipse and JDeveloper.

• Oracle’s mobile platform/suite is optimized to leverage Oracle’s next-generation IT platform, Exalogic Elastic Cloud appliance, which is positioned as Oracle’s highest performance engineered system for use as an IaaS. Oracle Java Cloud Service (PaaS) was added to Exalogic last year to automate app development/deployment. Exalogic’s primary selling point is the magnitude of performance gains (increasing the ROI) for Oracle’s core technologies (database, applications, and middleware) running on an integrated system. The appliance will appeal to Oracle customers looking to deploy mobile applications more efficiently, because it does not require the integration/build-out of a complex infrastructure.

• Oracle Cloud Application Foundation (CAF), a unified platform between conventional and cloud environments, represents a growing piece of Oracle’s mobile strategy. Through integrated WebLogic and Coherence in-memory computing, whether CAF is running on Exalogic private cloud deployments or on third-party clouds, Oracle’s go-to-market strategy is to promote CAF as the backend cloud infrastructure to increase productivity on the developer side, provide enhanced performance through caching, and enable mobile apps that support device-rich end-to-end interactions. Enhancements to CAF have been heavily driven by Oracle’s middleware organization, including the addition of an application development framework last summer.

Product:





Weaknesses• Oracle has unfolded its MEAP strategy over the last several months, playing catch-up to IBM and SAP in generating buzz around its technology, including differentiators. It has taken the vendor longer than rivals to formalize the potential of the varied mobile technologies it had already built in the form of ADF.

• Comprehensive technologies within Oracle’s middleware and SOA portfolio require a significant investment by enterprises looking for comprehensive mobile solutions including security, management, and backend integration. While Oracle is looking to attract broader devel-opers via Oracle Mobile Cloud Service, a number of alternatives have already emerged including cloud versions from pure-play MEAP providers and mobile services available through popular PaaS offerings.

• There has been a lack of detail around how the channel will make money from Oracle’s MEAP offering. Its mobile/cloud channel strategy is not clear; nor is it clear whether Oracle’s chan-nel partners including SIs and SPs will be comfortable with Oracle’s current licensing structure.

Product:



Metrics

Development PlatformRating: Very Strong

Eclipse IDE support Yes Location runtime services Yes

Visual Studio IDE support No Push runtime services Yes

Xcode IDE support No Local storage Yes

iOS platform support Yes Client-side encryption of persisted data Yes

Android platform support Yes Authentication Yes

Windows platform support No App update Yes

BlackBerry platform support No App configuration Yes

Tablets/notebooks platform support Yes Remote logging control/retrieval Yes

Native language support Yes Support for server-side object caching Yes

HTML5 language support Yes PHP language support No

JavaScript language support Yes Python language support No

CSS language support Yes Ruby language support No

Native architecture support Yes .NET language support No

Hybrid architecture support Yes Java language support Yes

Mobile web architecture support Yes Node.js language support Yes

SMS architecture support Yes XML protocol support Yes

Bytecode architecture support Yes REST protocol support Yes

Third-party APIs supported Yes SOAP protocol support Yes

Backend integration protocols supported Yes JSON protocol support Yes

Offline data sync Yes



Cloud DeploymentRating: Leader

On-premises Hybrid/Cloud-based MEAP Yes Vendor-specific cloud integration Yes

Applications portability to other (cloud IaaS/PaaS) platforms?

Yes Performance documentation Yes

Security / MGTRating: Strong

Dev/test lifecycle Yes OpenID authentication Yes

Deploy lifecycle Yes Cross platform single sign-on Yes

Update lifecycle Yes App Usage Analytics Yes

Visual IDE Yes Application Scanning Yes

MAM Yes Device end-user feedback capability Yes

Enterprise App Store Yes Location aware access Yes

Logs versus log analysis tools Yes Identity Propagation Yes

Oauth authentication Yes Encrypted data store on device Yes

Certificate authentication Yes Encryption of communications Yes

SSO authentication Yes

IntegrationRating: Leader

Open API services/mgt Yes Integration with SOA services Yes

REST library Yes Connectors Yes

MBaaS Yes Orchestration Yes

Push notifications Yes Storage Yes

Professional Services / Channel (Go To MKT)Rating: Very Strong

Pre-built mobile apps available Yes

Pricing On premise is licensed by processors and # of mobile clients / applications. Cloud is li-censed by # of API calls. The compute and platform services and pricing is transparent to the customer.

Direct/indirect sales percentage breakdown Information unavailable

Global services Oracle has a sizable global consulting service that provides business and technical ser-vices and range of partners including VARs, ISVs and SIs

Documents

Oracle Mobile Platform · The result was Oracle’s late 2013 announcement of the Oracle Mobile Platform, ... tools via Oracle ESB, ... architecture support Yes Node.js language