BEA Systems wins contract over IBM:
BEA to Provide the Application Infrastructure for moneysupermarket.com's UK Financial Services Offering-BEA WebLogic Selected Over IBM WebSphere
PR NEWSWIRE, 12/19/2001 6:00:00 AM
SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec 19, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS), one of the world's leading application infrastructure software companies, today announced that it has won a contract to provide BEA WebLogic(R) Integration and BEA WebLogic Personalization Server(TM) technology to moneysupermarket.com, an innovative UK-based financial services portal. Moneysupermarket.com reviewed a selection of application infrastructure solutions, including IBM's WebSphere, before selecting BEA WebLogic.
BEA WebLogic software will power moneysupermarket.com's expanding e-business operations and allow the company to diversify its service offerings for business partners, consumers and independent financial advisers. Moneysupermarket.com is set to launch its account aggregator service -- the first of its kind in the UK market -- early next year based on BEA WebLogic.
Moneysupermarket.com, wholly owned by Mortgage2000, is a profitable, commission-based online business. The company independently aggregates and compares a comprehensive range of financial products and services, including credit cards, mortgages, utilities, savings accounts and insurance. The company OEMs its content to leading search engines and ISPs, including Lycos, Excite, Telegraph.co.uk and Thisismoney.com.
"Following our review of the technology options, we identified BEA WebLogic as the most open and flexible solution for the business," said Simon Nixon, CEO of Mortgage2000. "BEA WebLogic offers a scalable infrastructure solution that will provide a robust and highly available platform for our business, and allow us to easily and cost-effectively export personalized content to our online partners."
The BEA WebLogic Integration(TM) solution will power moneysupermarket.com's account aggregator, allowing customers to view multiple online account records via a single Internet touchpoint. The account aggregator service will also highlight favorable offerings from other banks while customers check their records. The service will use an XML connection from BEA WebLogic to moneysupermarket.com's existing proprietary financial services comparison tool.
Moneysupermarket.com has signed partnerships with a number of leading portals and Internet service providers. These partners market moneysupermarket.com content and services under their own brand and URL. BEA WebLogic Personalization Server allows moneysupermarket.com to tailor the look, feel and functionality of its content to the specific requirements of its various business partners before exporting the data to remote partner sites. The ability to rapidly share content with new partners is critical to moneysupermarket.com's B2B revenue stream.
"The right infrastructure technology is a critical success factor for online businesses," Nixon said. "Our ability to achieve rapid time to market and commercial innovation will determine the profitability of the business in the competitive financial services marketplace. The BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform provides the all-important foundation for this effort."
About moneysupermarket.com
Moneysupermarket.com provides consumers with the ability to compare the cost of mortgages, credit cards, personal loans, critical illness, life assurance and breakdown polices, utilities (including dual fuel information), savings accounts, current accounts and cash ISAs, plus business banking services. It was also the first and only company to introduce an online mortgage auction, where businesses bid for house-buyers' mortgage business.
The Mortgage 2000 Group owns moneysupermarket.com and launched the website service to consumers in December 1999. The Mortgage 2000 Group was formed in 1993 to provide mortgage-sourcing software to Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) and mortgage brokers.
Mortgage 2000 has more than 10,000 IFA and mortgage brokers subscribing on a paid basis to its trade software, and an independent survey carried out by the IMLA involving more than 10,000 intermediaries concluded that Mortgage2000 has 50.2% of the intermediary mortgage sourcing market. The company is based in Chester, England.
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