BEA, HP Team Up In Product, Services Deal

BEA Systems Hewlett-Packard

Under the terms of the deal, HP will bundle BEA's WebLogic middleware, including its WebLogic Platform 7.0,a unified product comprised of BEA's app server, portal, integration and the WebLogic Workshop development environment,with HP hardware systems, said Wynn White, senior director for product marketing at BEA.

The systems include HP-UX, OpenVMS, NonStop Kernel and Tru64 Unix on current standard platforms and future Itanium platforms, as well as Windows 2000, Windows NT and Linux, he said.

As part of the alliance, San Jose, Calif.-based BEA also will make HP its preferred consulting services provider for BEA WebLogic on HP servers, said White. HP's professional services organization is forming a dedicated practice around BEA middleware products, he said.

BEA's consulting arm also will form a practice to deploy WebLogic on HP servers, he added.

White did not comment on whether this would create conflict with solution providers that wanted to build BEA WebLogic-based solutions on HP server platforms.

But Curt Stevenson, founder and vice president of business development at Back Bay Technologies, a Boston-based solution provider, said there is potential for conflict with BEA partners as HP becomes a preferred services provider.

"I would say that definitely will put some pressure on their other partner relationships," said Stevenson.

Stevenson said though he currently doesn't see HP professional services as a threat to his business, "that's not to say they couldn't be in 12 months."

In other news Tuesday, BEA said it would make several new products available this week, including its version of JRockit, the Java virtual machine it acquired in February from Sweden-based Appeal Virtual Machines, White said.

JRockit is part of BEA's plan to optimize WebLogic on Intel-based servers. BEA unveiled a partnership with Intel to broaden its WebLogic deployment base in July 2001.

JRockit is essential to the HP deal because the product "fills a void" left in the market when Microsoft decided to drop its JVM out of the Windows XP platform, said White.

"JRockit is really going to be the only platform-independent JVM that's out there" for deployment on multiple server platforms based on Intel processors, White said.

Tuesday BEA also expanded the Intel deal to optimize WebLogic on Itanium processors, said White. BEA's original deal with Intel optimized WebLogic only for Intel Xeon processors.

As first reported by CRN, an industry analyst said last week that a BEA-HP alliance was likely given reports that HP plans to sell off the J2EE-based middleware it acquired when it bought Bluestone Software in October 2000.

HP most recently has been giving its J2EE app server away for free after the server failed to perform well in the competitive J2EE market, which is dominated by BEA and IBM. HP has yet to confirm the reports it will dump its Java middleware, but one solution provider, who requested anonymity, told CRN that Bluestone middleware is "definitely on the [selling block."

An HP spokeswoman Tuesday said that HP is still assessing its software strategy but will take a more partner-centric approach going forward. The alliance with BEA is the first part of that plan, she said.

Observers have said that BEA also faces increased competition from hardware partner Sun Microsystems as Sun steps up efforts to sell its Sun ONE software platform.

Last week, Sun unveiled a free, basic version of its J2EE app server as part of its plan to win market share from BEA and IBM. Sun also cut prices for the standard edition and enterprise edition of the products, to $2,000 per CPU and $10,000 per CPU, respectively.

Back Bay's Stevenson said BEA's partnership with HP is a "direct counterstrike" to Sun's news last week.

However, BEA's White said that Sun will remain "a very strong partner of ours" even while the HP deal opens up new distribution channels for BEA software products.

Mike DeBellis, principal and e-business CTO at Deloitte Consulting, said that even if hardware vendors like Sun, IBM and Oracle have the advantage of tying their J2EE software platforms to hardware and database products, BEA WebLogic still has a technology advantage.

"In my experience, there's clearly some differentiators between BEA's technology and that of the IBMs and Oracles and Suns," said DeBellis.

BEA WebLogic Platform 7.0 will be generally available Friday for $90,000 per CPU, said White. The product contains new 7.0 versions of the app server, portal server and integration products, as well as the first generally available version of WebLogic Workshop. WebLogic Workshop is a J2EE runtime environment for building and deploying Web services.