IBM revamps e-business software
Published: 09 May 2002 07:31 BST
IBM will revamp its arsenal of e-business software this week as it tries to capture new customers and put some distance between itself and its rivals.
At its DeveloperWorks Live conference in San Francisco, IBM will outline the latest plans for its family of business software. Topping the list is a new version of IBM's WebSphere application server software, which is used to run e-commerce and other Web site transactions. The new software is intended to help Big Blue gain ground on competitors including BEA Systems, Sun Microsystems and Oracle.
Despite the tough economy, IBM has captured market share in the past year. After years of trailing in the Java application server market, which reached $2.19bn in sales in 2001, IBM has moved into a tie with BEA for the lead. Application server software is a key piece of infrastructure for application development. BEA and IBM both have 34 percent market share, followed by Sun with 7 percent and Oracle with 6 percent. And, according to study this week, IBM has surpassed Oracle in sales of database management software.
"It's a good time for IBM," Giga Information Group analyst Mike Gilpin said. "A lot of things have come together to put them in a leadership position this year, but it will still be a real horse race."
Version 5 of the WebSphere application server, available in a few weeks, will have support for the latest version of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), the Java standard for business software; and for the first time, it will offer built-in support for Web services standards. Web services provide more efficient ways for companies to build software, link applications and make pieces of those applications available over a network.
"Web services now sit alongside J2EE as a first-class citizen," Gilpin said. "Web services capabilities were a bit pasted on before."
Like its rivals, IBM augments its application server with integration software, which allows companies to link dissimilar business software to share information.
IBM this week is expected to announce updates to its integration software, as well as new software development tools. The company also plans to announce new Tivoli management software for managing security and a new portion of the IBM Web site that focuses on the needs of Lotus developers. Lotus is IBM's family of email, messaging and collaboration software.
For a weekly round-up of the enterprise IT news, sign up for the Tech Update newsletter.
Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum.
Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
Did you find this article useful?
41 out of 85 people found this useful
- Share this article:
