Intalio Inc. and Jacada Ltd. are each readying software that the vendors say will enable companies to more effectively integrate data and business processes among the enterprise and Web applications they have installed.
Intalio, of San Mateo, Calif., next quarter will release Version 2.1 of its n3 business process management software suite, which provides a new tool that enables business analysts and IT managers to use the same tool when creating interactive Web pages (see screen).
The tool, called XPage Designer, takes advantage of n3s existing XPage Engine, which compiles Intalios XPage programming language. XPage is supposed to simplify the process of creating Web pages that connect to business processes in various applications by presenting a unified development environment that replaces Java, JavaScript, XML, HTML and other Web programming languages.
Designer includes a WYSIWYG interface that is similar to Microsoft Corp.s FrontPage Web development software, Intalio officials said. Using Designer, a business analyst would draft the user interface for the Web page and map out the desired functionality. Then an IT manager would extract the relevant data and event models and link them to IT processes, officials said.
“Pushing business design to business analysts or end users has obvious advantages: reduced documentation, streamlined development and improved flexibility,” said n3 user Vernon Stinebaker, vice president at iUniverse Inc., of Lincoln, Neb.
Separately, application integration software developer Jacada in June will introduce Version 4.0 of its namesake Integrator product. The upgrades new Data Modeler feature will give IT managers the capability to draw maps that connect legacy data to Web applications via screen scraping or transaction connections.
Jacada Integrator 4.0 also will provide support for JCA (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition Connector Architecture), an emerging standard for wrapping the connectivity logic in Jacada Integrator and hooking it into a J2EE application server. Connecting to the application server via JCA technology provides better performance than doing so through Enterprise JavaBeans, said Jacada officials, in Atlanta.