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BEA Systems new project, code-named Genesis, brings together service-oriented architecture, business process management, enterprise social computing and other technologies to enable users and IT administrators to deliver dynamic solutions that plug into existing application environments.
At the companys BEAWorld conference in San Francisco Sept. 11, Chairman and CEO Alfred Chuang called Project Genesis a dynamic business application platform initiative that BEA expects to transform software innovation at the application tier.
However, Chuang said, “We are not becoming an applications company.”
With Project Genesis, both users and IT will be able to assemble, change and deploy dynamic business applications to achieve competitive advantage, he said. Genesis extends the vision of the BEA AquaLogic product family by including a simplified approach for assembling and modifying dynamic business applications.
Chuang said Genesis will revolutionize the way organizations “create, operate and govern dynamic next-generation applications.”
In addition, the family of products that will be part of Project Genesis will facilitate the introduction of use-based pricing and SAAS (software as a service) functionality, Chuang said.
“We believe there is a market change and that market change is huge,” he said. “There is a new generation of application packages that are flexible, that contain libraries of business processes and can be combined on the fly.”
Moreover, Chuang said, “Genesis is where we ultimately want to take AquaLogic to. People are starting to look for standard platforms, and a lot of the software-as-a-service companies have to build a lot of the infrastructure themselves.” Genesis will help with that, he said.
The San Jose, Calif., company plans to share additional information about its road map for Project Genesis at BEA World Shanghai in December, officials said.
Buyout rumors swirl around BEA. Click here to read more.
Meanwhile, BEA also announced new performance results and unveiled product plans that will help the company expand its role in Java virtualization and further execute on its Liquid Enterprise vision.
According to early lab test results jointly conducted by BEA and Intel, LiquidVM—the foundational technology behind WebLogic Server Virtual Edition—runs Java over two times more efficiently than using the normal operating system-based software stack on VMware Infrastructure. Because LiquidVM runs directly on top of the VMware ESX Server hypervisor platform without a traditional operating system, it can manage memory resources for Java applications much more efficiently than the alternative operating system model.
BEA also announced that it is making key components of its Enterprise 360° offering available as virtual appliances ready to run directly in virtualized environments such as VMware Infrastructure. The company will start with WebLogic Portal and AquaLogic Service Bus—expected early next year—and will eventually support additional products under the virtual appliance paradigm as part of its Liquid Enterprise strategy.
Click here to read more about BEAs focus on virtualization.
As part of its virtual appliance strategy, BEA also unveiled a new pricing model based on how many instances of software a customer has deployed. In contrast to traditional CPU-based pricing, a customer only pays for actual software use, regardless of the underlying hardware.
BEA also announced the first product component of WorkSpace 360° with the release of BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository 3.0. WorkSpace 360° is designed to empower business analysts, architects, developers and IT operations to collaborate more efficiently on the delivery of service-oriented applications. Workspace 360° is a key first step in the realization of BEAs Project Genesis vision, BEA officials said.
The BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository 3.0 is a registry and repository that is aimed at improving the management and governance of SOA (service-oriented architecture) deployments, and the offering combines the governance capabilities of BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Repository with the BEA AquaLogic Service Registry.
Meanwhile, also at BEAWorld, EnterConnect, a provider of business-ready portals, announced the launch of SOAAPPS.com, The Business On-Demand Marketplace for midmarket business executives seeking rapid-value, enterprise-class subscription-based applications. In addition, BEA has entered into a strategic partnership with EnterConnect under which BEA will provide the underlying enterprise infrastructure software to power SOAAPPS.com. BEA is helping ISVs to build, market, sell, deploy and manage SAAS offerings.
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