BEA Raises the Bar on E-Business Platforms, Combining #1 Application Server, Web Services, Integration and Portal Technologies Into the BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform
Expanded BEA Platform to Help Future-Proof E-Businesses to Become More Customer-Centric and Agile While Sharing Data and Business Processes Fluidly Across the Enterprise
SAN FRANCISCO, JavaOne Developer Conference, Jun 4, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS chart, msgs), today increased its lead over other e-business infrastructure providers, becoming the first company to introduce an e-business platform that combines application server, Web Services, integration and portal technologies into a powerful single, integrated, standards-based e-infrastructure solution.
The expanded BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform will include BEA WebLogic Server(TM) 6.1, the Web Services release of the world's #1 Java application server; BEA WebLogic Integration(TM), a completely J2EE-based integration solution; and BEA WebLogic Portal(TM) 4.0, BEA's next-generation enterprise portal product. With these new releases combined into one complete and integrated platform, BEA will make it easier than ever for customers to connect business processes, link enterprise and e-commerce applications and share information across the enterprise and the Internet. In effect, making it much easier for companies to do e-business.
"We have expanded our e-business platform in response to strong demand from the market," said Alfred Chuang, founder, president and COO of BEA Systems. "Today's businesses face many obstacles within their enterprise systems that prevent them from realizing the promise of e-business. Their most acute need is for applications to talk to each other, both within the enterprise and across the firewall to partners and suppliers. BEA's answer is to develop the first non-proprietary, integrated solution to allow data and services to be shared across multiple applications and systems. Unlike other offerings in the market, we are delivering a truly integrated platform that is built on open standards and the market's #1 application server -- the de facto standard for the industry's leading systems integrators, independent software vendors and application service providers. By expanding our platform, we are making it easier for companies to create an open standards-based global community of seamlessly interconnected data, business processes and people."
The expanded BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform is designed to support the entire spectrum of Web Services -- from simple to multi-party Business Web Services -- enabling business-to-business collaboration, and services and application integration with partners, suppliers and internal and external customers on one common platform. BEA is expanding the power and reach of the application server and evolving Java, integration and Web Services technologies to enable businesses to unlock the potential of the Internet as a universal field of business, rather than a Web of loosely linked sites.
"Convergence of the application server and the integration broker technologies into the next-generation e-business software platform empowers the user to design and deploy more flexible and more powerful applications, integrating the distributed heterogeneous resources of a virtual enterprise into new and agile composite business processes," said Yefim Natis, vice president and research director at Gartner, Inc.
Key new solutions added to this edition of BEA's e-business platform include:
BEA WebLogic Server 6.1 -- Bridging J2EE and Web Services
The Web Services release of BEA WebLogic Server 6.1 extends the reach of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) with a complementary and comprehensive architecture for simple Web Service that supports SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. BEA WebLogic Server offers the industry's first and only shipping application server that can automatically transcribe enterprise and Web-based J2EE applications into Web Services, with no additional programming. Furthermore, with support for the J2EE Connector Architecture, BEA now provides a standard framework for plugging applications into the award-winning BEA WebLogic Server, reducing the cost and complexity of application integration.
"McKesson has already standardized on WebLogic Server, in part because of BEA's industry-leading commitment to J2EE technologies," said Charles Nettles, senior vice president and chief technology executive for McKessonHBOC. "We believe that BEA's support for the J2EE Connector Architecture is a move in the right direction and will allow us to more easily and efficiently integrate our business. McKessonHBOC and BEA share a common vision of providing significant value to customers through comprehensive Business Web Services."
BEA WebLogic Integration -- Build to Integrate
BEA WebLogic Integration will leverage the power and increased depth of BEA WebLogic Server and the J2EE Connector Architecture framework. BEA's powerful new J2EE integration solution will simplify the task of integrating proprietary, legacy systems with standards-based, J2EE applications. A complete integration infrastructure, it will enable data from a range of systems to be shared and integrated across the enterprise. BEA WebLogic Integration combines four key functional areas: a Web Services application server to increase efficiency for building, changing and hosting applications; application integration for building universal connectivity on a systematic, standards-based infrastructure; business process management for integrating and automating complex business processes across the value chain; and B2B integration to connect enterprises quickly and easily. BEA WebLogic Integration will enable organizations to create applications that are built to integrate, eliminating the cost and complexity associated with existing proprietary integration technologies.
BEA has garnered an immediate surge of support for its J2EE Connector Architecture standards based integration approach from more than a dozen market-leading independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators (SIs), and other business partners, including CSC, Contivo, Infogain Corporation, Loudcloud, PeopleSoft, Siebel, Sun Microsystems, and webMethods. Please see today's related news announcement, "BEA Announces BEA WebLogic Integration For Dramatically Simplified Enterprise Integration," for more information.
BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0 -- Next Generation Enterprise Portal
Extending the reach of the WebLogic E-Business Platform, BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0 will improve and streamline the user's portal experience by simplifying and personalizing access to information and services. BEA WebLogic Portal will incorporate the BEA Portal Framework(TM)), which is currently provided with BEA WebLogic Personalization Server(TM), and new portal technologies, user tools and partner applications to more easily and cost-effectively deploy e-business portals for employees, customers, partners and suppliers.
Availability
BEA WebLogic Server 6.1 beta will be available for download on June 5, 2001. BEA WebLogic Integration will be available at the end of June 2001 and BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0 will be available in fall 2001.
BEA Systems, Inc.
BEA Systems, Inc. is one of the world's leading e-business infrastructure software companies, with more than 10,000 customers around the world, including the majority of the Fortune Global 500. BEA and its WebLogic(R) brand are among the most trusted names in e-business. Businesses built on the award-winning BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform(tm) are reliable, highly scalable, and poised to bring new services to market quickly. BEA's e-business platform is the de facto standard for more than 1,900 system integrators, independent software vendors (ISVs) and application service providers (ASPs) to provide complete solutions that fast-track and future-proof e-businesses for high growth and profitability. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., BEA has 92 offices in 32 countries and is on the Web at www.bea.com.
Some of the statements in this press release are forward-looking, including the statements regarding the functionality, features and benefits of BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform, BEA WebLogic Server 6.1, BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0 and BEA WebLogic Integration (the "Products") and the availability and the shipping dates of the Products. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties BEA faces that could cause results to differ materially include risks associated with: any unforeseen technical difficulties related to the final development of the Products, including the integration of the Products with each other; the introduction by competitors of competitive products developed internally or acquired; the effectiveness of the implementation of the Products by customers; and any technological or other changes in the markets addressed by the Products which could require technical or feature changes in the Products. Readers should also refer to the risk disclosures set forth in BEA's 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2001 as filed with the SEC and subsequent reports filed thereafter from time-to-time with the SEC. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are made as of the date hereof, and BEA does not assume any obligation to update such statements nor the reasons why actual results could differ materially from those projected in such statements.
NOTE: BEA, BEA Tuxedo, and WebLogic, BEA WebLogic Server, BEA WebLogic Commerce Server, BEA WebLogic Personalization Server, BEA WebLogic Process Integrator, BEA WebLogic M-Commerce Solution, BEA WebLogic Collaborate, and BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform are trademarks or registered trademarks of BEA Systems, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the company with which they are associated |
