My opinion, yes. In the long run, WebCenter is built on the technology that Oracle is promoting and that companies are moving towards. WebCenter is geared to the Java developer, while non-Java developers can be productive in the Oracle Portal environment. And although it will take years to completely replace (if ever), I doubt Oralce will invest too much more money in Oracle Portal. Portlet and portal modularization will occur in WebCenter and content management in new CMS aquisitions made by Oracle.
So, is this good or bad…it depends on who you talk to, but I say indifferent. Welcome to technology; it changes – RAPIDLY – and vendors like Oracle need to keep up with advanacements in order to continue to land new customers. And if they play their cards right, they can typically keep enough existing customers during changes like these to make it more than worth it.
Want more insight into what is going on with this technology? Feel free to contact me.