So Larry Ellison has realized that Oracle needs to keep evolving its software to be competitive. This is not a new strategy for Oracle, or anyone else. As a product becomes commoditized (and database backup is a commodity product, let's face it), they get subsumed into main product lines, like the Oracle stack.
I have serious contention with the idea that Oracle's strategy is to lower TCO this way, however. The trend I've seen, and many of my government clients have seen, is that of Oracle's licensing, even at the enterprise level, having extraordinary margins. It's certainly not decreasing right now and I have trouble believing that adding new products into the enterprise stack will reduce cost to the customer.
More likely is that, just like the Microsoft enterprise stack, Oracle customers will end up with licenses for products they'll never need or use. But because they're tied to the keystone Oracle product, the database, they'll resign themselves to paying what seems like a little-bit-extra for stuff they won't utilize.
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