IBM Beefs Up WebSphere 5

Partners will be able to use that functionality to mix and match various Web services and put them through the same workflow processes, an IBM executive said last week.

WebSphere Application Server Version 5, due late next month, will embed a new workflow engine that will help business partners quickly implement diverse Web services, said Stefan Van Overtveldt, director of WebSphere technical marketing at IBM Software.

"The engine is particularly strong in doing workflow between J2EE assets and Web services so you can combine multiple Web services into a single, logical flow," he said.

The J2EE 1.3-based engine will recognize emerging standards such as the Business Process Extension Language for Web Services, he added. In addition, the technology will support what IBM calls "compensation."

"If for some reason you need to back out of a workflow, if a transaction fails, it is not a simple undo [back to the beginning of the process. If a workflow has an order coming in, it checks inventory, schedules production parts that are not available, does a credit check, creates an invoice and shipping order. If something goes wrong in the invoice phase, the order is not deleted," said Van Overtveldt.

"The workflow engine is going into MQ Workflow so you get the advantage of common security and common management environment across the products," he said. "This does not mean that MQ Workflow is going away."

IBM has been extremely aggressive with its WebSphere lineup, so much so that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer cited it as a competitive threat last June.

Some observers say Microsoft's planned Jupiter bundle of Commerce Server 2002, Content Management Server 2002 and BizTalk Server 2002 is a response at least in part to IBM's WebSphere-branded offerings.

Former app server powers such as BEA Systems and Art Technology Group "are all trying to find new and different things to engage in because the application platform is really, in my estimation, an IBM WebSphere play," said Brian Glidden, director of the IBM National Alliance Partnership at Covansys, a Farmington Hills, Mich.-based IT consultancy.

IBM delivered WebSphere Studio Version 5 last month and plans to ship a version of its WebSphere Portal for the SMB community by the end of this month. That offering comes with an aggressive price tag of $77 per user, which some partners said could help it compete against Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server.