BEA Acquires Flashline To Expand AquaLogic Lineup

Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Flashline CEO Charles Stack has joined BEA and is slated to continue heading the Flashline team, which will remain in its Cleveland headquarters. Founded in 1998, privately held Flashline's customers include Sabre Holdings, Wells Fargo and Countrywide Home Loans.

Flashline's technology helps organizations manage and assess software assets like applications and business process tools exposed through Web services. Already rebranded as the BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Repository, Flashline will be a key component of BEA's AquaLogic stack, company executives said in a conference call about the acquisition.

"Over the past five years, metadata management has really gone from a 'nice to have' to a 'must have,' and I think SOA is largely responsible for that transition," Stack said.

BEA had a registry technology in place in AquaLogic, the Systinet Registry, which it struck a deal last year to resell. BEA will continue supporting and reselling the Systinet software as well as Flashline's, said BEA CTO Rob Levy.

The metadata market has been in an M&A frenzy. For example, WebMethods acquired semantic metadata management technology maker Cerebra on Monday to further build out its SOA software portfolio.

BEA launched the AquaLogic line last year as part of a broad effort to carve a niche in a fiercely competitive software market. BEA has been filling out the line through acquisitions. Recent deals include Fuego, a business-process management software maker; M7, an application development tools vendor; and Plumtree Software, a portals company.