IBMs $129 million acquisition of CrossWorlds Software Inc. last week will strengthen IBMs e-business products by deepening the ties between its WebSphere application server and CrossWorlds business process integration software.
CrossWorlds will also fill holes in IBMs environment for e-business EAI (enterprise application integration).
The deal will close early in the first quarter of next year, and by then, IBM will deliver an edition of WebSphere that offers basic connections between the two product lines, officials said.
By the second half of next year, IBM will ship a more tightly integrated enterprise server that enables organizations to choreograph system-to-system integration projects.
Pulling together WebSphere and EAI tools is not new. IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., and CrossWorlds, of Burlingame, Calif., have sold solutions that include each others products for several years.
But Phillip Merrick, CEO of CrossWorlds competitor WebMethods Inc., thinks IBM is biting off more than it can chew. “For large-scale integrations, [bundling the application server and EAI software] just doesnt work,” said Merrick, in Fairfax, Va.
In related news, BEA Systems Inc. last month began shipping Version 2.1 of its WebLogic Integration software, which combines the San Jose, Calif., companys WebLogic application server with application integration, business process management and business-to-business integration functionality.