A lot has been said about this acquisition over the last few months, though I don't know why anyone doubted Oracle would acquire BEA. What Larry wants, Larry gets.
But, now that it's official, overnight Oracle has created a new product category: Legacy SOA Infrastructure.
Like it or not, it would be bad business for Oracle to have two app servers, two ESBs, two process engines, etc. So, in each category, Oracle are going to have to pick one to go forward. Because of this, customers that made a different choice will end up with legacy SOA infrastructure products that they will have to deal with.
Of course, the $19.375 question (for each product category) is "which one wins?"