With the release of WebCenter Spaces on July 1 of this year (as part of WebCenter Suite 11g), Oracle has made an interesting statement. When you look at Spaces, it seems to do a lot of the things that WebCenter Interaction (formerly BEA ALUI and before that Plumtree Portal) does. The key difference is that Spaces is built on top of the WebCenter Framework, which is Oracle’s “Strategic” platform going forward. Spaces also incorporates all of the WebCenter Services (which I’ll cover in a later post) out of the box.
So, this release leaves an interesting question for people using or about to start using WebCenter Interaction. Are they on a viable platform? Here’s what I think. I think if your organization is currently using WCI/ALUI/Plumtree, and has a set of developers skilled in delivering on that platform, there’s no hurry to switch. WCI will be in the “Continue and Converge” category for nearly eight more years. If you’re looking at a new initiative, and certainly if you don’t have WCI in house already, you should give heavy consideration to the new Spaces product. I’d recommend doing a short-term Proof-0f-Concept/Bake-Off between WCI and Spaces, and if Spaces can provide the desired functionality, go with the “Strategic” platform.
