This is a good question, although the Oracle release stated that OAS will continue to be developed . Legally they could do nothing, but for marketing purposes and customer satisfaction, I'll assume something is going to happen there.
At OpenWorld 2007, during the platforms roundtable, a certain product manager asked if there were any additional technologies we would like to see, but emphatically and with a slight smile he stated "do not ask me about BEA". That was prior to the Oracle acquisition of BEA. I'm hardly amazed by how fast business decisions can change opinions.
Technically speaking, Oracle commented that JRockit will become their "go to" JVM, though they'll continue to certify against other JVMs. BEA didn't have a JRockit for AIX or PA-RISC. It is strictly a JVM for Intel and SPARC platforms.
They could completely rip out the guts of OAS and replace it with other guts and it is still OAS. OAS is just a branding for a bunch of components tied together such as Apache for the HTTP Server, OC4J for servlets, etc., so a lot of things could happen there. OAS could even become a "WebLogic Express", which if you look at the Oracle price list, has been dumped. We could previously license WebLogic Express for dirt cheap, but it appears to be no longer available.
They also have an issue with eBusiness Suite (EBS) currently requiring OAS, but JD Edwards does not have a problem there so we'll wait and see.
It will be interesting to find out what they do, if anything, in the near term. Long term, they almost have to include some WebLogic components in a Technology Foundation, be it the Oracle Technology Foundation or a third option. I'm sure many of us will try to find out sooner rather than later.
