Wakesoft Launches J2EE Development Program For Solution Providers

Launched in October, Wakesoft, based here, is unveiling its formal systems integrator program at JavaOne 2002 this week, with eight initial partners, mainly small to midsize integrators, already signed up.

Mark DeVries, CEO of the 25-person start-up, said Wakesoft's flagship product, the Wakesoft Architecture Server, is aimed at giving solution providers a "reusable collection of frameworks" for developing J2EE applications.

One of solution providers' chief complaints about J2EE is that while it has caught on as the de facto standard for building and deploying enterprise-scale Java apps, it is far more difficult to use than building typical client/server-based Java apps, observers said.

Sun Microsystems recently released a version of its iPlanet app server with a J2EE framework to help speed development and also worked with Accenture to develop the reusable General and Reusable Netcentric Delivery Solution (GRNDS) solution with the same goal in mind.

Wakesoft founders Walter Hurst and Krishna Gollamudi, formerly of solution provider Expedior, saw an opportunity to fill this market niche and began laying the plan for Wakesoft two years ago, DeVries said.

"We pretty well understand about how difficult it is to build on top of J2EE," DeVries said. "A packaged, reusable architecture gives the [J2EE developers a huge jump forward [by providing 80 percent to 90 percent of their development for them. They're not starting with a blank sheet of paper."

Some of the solution providers in WakeSoft's System Integrator Program are Cardinal Solutions, Carbon Five, Lakefront Consulting, Signate and Tacpoint, DeVries said.

To make it easier for solution providers to use the Wakesoft architecture to build solutions while taking advantage of the program, Wakesoft is providing all of its training online and is giving solution providers in the program access to technology from Web downloads as well, DeVries said.

"We're not going to take them off the job and drag them into a training class," DeVries said.