BEA Makes Inroads Into Gov't Market

Mark Hogan, vice president and general manager of BEA government systems, said that until recently, BEA's business in federal accounts has been "neg-

ligible." But between late August and mid-November, the company won nearly 100 federal contracts, he said.

In BEA's fiscal third quarter, ended Oct. 31, new licensing revenue in the government space contributed to about 15 percent of the company's overall business, Hogan said.

"The past couple of quarters have been record-

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setters," he said, citing the second and third quarters of BEA's 2003 fiscal year. "We did more last quarter than in the past two years, experiencing an increase of several hundred percent."

Nearly all of BEA's deals in the government market involve some kind of business partner, whether an ISV that embeds BEA software in its product or a systems integrator.

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BEA's Mark Hogan says the company won nearly 100 federal contracts between August and mid-November.

Take Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Information Technology, an integrator that recently teamed with BEA to build the FirstGov portal project for the U.S. government's General Services Administration, Hogan said.

Dennis Woo, senior alliance manager at Northrop's Computing Systems group, said his company has partnered with BEA since 1998 and anticipates that BEA's presence in the government sector will have grown significantly by the end of 2002.

A recent government mandate requiring that agencies provide better services to citizens using the Internet is a key factor in the growth of government contracts for solution providers, Woo said.

Government agencies are also committed to using technology industry standards such as J2EE and Web services for their Internet architectures, and BEA's offerings allow agencies to do that, Woo said.

"BEA products have an excellent track record in providing robust, secure, scalable solutions that are built on these standards," he said.

BEA's Hogan attributes some of his company's recent success in the government sector to the general strength of that market, which has been a hot spot for technology engagements in the past year.

And Hogan agreed with Woo that the government "is a leader in embracing standards" for its IT projects and is intent on standardizing on the J2EE or .Net platform going forward.

Since the Java camp "is more ready for prime time than [Microsoft is," BEA is in a good position to win government contracts, Hogan said, adding, "BEA has a good product at a great time."

Yet while opportunity in the government sector abounds, there are challenges, too, Woo said.

The primary issue concerns trust between solution providers and clients, which often takes time to build, he said.

"The key challenge is the time required to build trusted relationships with the public sector," Woo said. "Since this is fairly new territory for the government, they need tested partners whom they can depend on to deliver what is required to carry out their mission."

Other notable government agencies that have awarded BEA contracts in the past 90 days are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Department of Veterans Affairs and NASA, Hogan said.