IBM Moves Ahead With WebSphere Integration Plans

Called WebSphere Application Server 5.0, the new product will fully support the latest J2EE 1.3 specification and is due to ship in July, said John Swainson, IBM's general manager of applications and integration middleware.

IBM also unveiled a new integration software package, WebSphere Business Integration 4.1, which combines three products: IBM's CrossWorlds Interchange Server, MQ Workflow and WebSphere Integrator Broker, a new low-end version of the IBM MQ Integrator messaging hub.

WebSphere 5.0 is the foundation for IBM's plan to build more products in the MQ Series and CrossWorlds lineups, Swainson said. The company aims to link all of the products in its WebSphere software series more tightly through this integration, slated to be completed by summer 2003, he said.

Brad Murphy, senior vice president of strategic business development at Dallas-based Valtech Technologies, said the decision to build all WebSphere software products on top of a common J2EE engine is a major step forward for IBM. Previously, the WebSphere products were linked mainly by a common brand name, leaving solution providers with "a do-it-yourself construction project" to integrate the products, he said.

"They're converting all of these tools in a way that they really leverage one another, and that has not been the case historically," Murphy said. "It can only serve to accelerate IBM's momentum in the J2EE space."

New features in WebSphere 5.0 include a private UDDI registry that allows developers to automatically publish applications built on the platform as Web services, Swainson said. The product also includes extensions to J2EE to create business-process flows in Enterprise JavaBeans, he said, adding that a process manager extension is required to do this type of integration today.