The following message is being posted to ensure accurate information around the SunGard Higher Education Luminis Platform Portal Strategy:
Luminis Platform is a key SunGard HE component and will continue to be an important enabling technology and strategic offering for the company. During Summit 2007, SunGard Higher Education announced plans to extend its Luminis Platform offering to provide options at the portal server layer. Luminis Platform has always focused on providing interoperability where appropriate. The message at Summit was in support of continuing this trend by offering portal engine choice and flexibility through support for both the uPortal framework and the Oracle Portal Server.
In addition to the regular feedback received in favor of open source technology and the dynamic and value the open-source community offers to higher education, SunGard HE also receives feedback around the need to reduce the complexity and the number of foundational technical components in the overall SunGard HE UDC solution set. As the SunGard HE solutions add more value as a whole, clients have asked for more uniformity in administration and management and overall technology stack alignment. We've taken this feedback and decided to look to parts of the Oracle technology stack to serve this need as it makes sense on a number of fronts including:
- Creates further synergy with existing use of Oracle technology across the SunGard HE products
- Many SunGard HE clients already have full-use license to Oracle stack which includes the Oracle Portal Server technologies. SunGard HE has yet to do anything to help these clients leverage that technology base.
This strategy is currently slated for the 2009 timeframe. It will result in two Luminis Platform options - one utilizing uPortal framework and one utilizing Oracle Portal Server technologies -- and will allow SunGard HE to better meet the needs of clients by providing greater choice and flexibility.
As of Q1 2007, the existing Luminis Platform solution that is based on the uPortal open-source framework has been adopted by over 650 clients worldwide. This growth is expected to accelerate over the next several years. The latest version, Luminis Platform IV, is expected to contribute significantly to this growth. The uPortal based Luminis Platform solution will continue to be developed and maintained in support of this growth. This initiative simply provides a technology option for Luminis Platform where clients can select to have it run on uPortal or Oracle Portal technologies
