BEA Boosts EAI Portfolio With New Adapters

BEA Systems

The new adapters, which link legacy systems to J2EE-based middleware, mark the first time BEA is branding adapters under WebLogic, said Peter Linkin, senior director of product marketing at BEA.

BEA will offer four types of adapters, Linkin said. They are application adapters for enterprise apps such as Siebel and PeopleSoft; adapters for industry-specific standards such as HIPAA; utility adapters for standard protocols such as HTTP and FTP; and technology adapters for legacy technologies such as EDI and mainframe connections.

The adapters, which are priced separately from WebLogic Integration server, will be sold for between $20,000 and $50,000, Linkin said. They will be available later this month, he added.

BEA previously had a deal to use integration adapters from third-party EAI vendor Peregrine Systems, but that ended when Peregrine ran into trouble in early summer, observers said.

In June Peregrine announced its intent to lay off half of its workforce. In July, Nasdaq delisted Peregrine stock amid a Securities and Exchabge Commission investigation after auditor Arthur Andersen said Peregrine financial statements for 2001 and the first three quarters of fiscal 2002 should not be relied upon.

On BEA's second-quarter earnings call last week, BEA Chairman, CEO and President Alfred Chuang stressed BEA's integration software as an area of growth for the company, telling analysts to stay tuned for developments in the third quarter.

While BEA's leading middleware competitor, IBM, has a diverse integration portfolio, BEA has been criticized for the limitations of its integration software, said Shawn Willett, principal analyst at Current Analysis.

"BEA is working at a bit of a disadvantage since it does not have a franchise like MQSeries, nor its own EAI product like CrossWorlds," Willett said.

Linkin said his company's integration suite has always been competitive with "pure-play" EAI vendors such as WebMethods and Tibco. "We do have a functionally rich integration stack," he said. "WebLogic Integration from the outset has had all of the basic functional components of the integration stack from the pure-plays."

The new adapters will help broaden BEA's portfolio and boost its reputation in the EAI market, since it means BEA no longer is relying on third parties alone to provide the technology, Willett said.

BEA does have one advantage over IBM in that its technology is unified around J2EE and its WebLogic Application Server, while IBM's integration portfolio is built on a variety of technologies, Willett added.

Recognizing this, IBM in May unfolded plans to standardize its CrossWorlds and MQSeries product lines on WebSphere Application Server 5.0.

WebSphere 5.0, which IBM originally slated for general availability in June, will be generally available in October or November, Scott Hebner, director of WebSphere marketing for IBM, told CRN last week.