BEA Appoints New CEO
Application server market leader BEA Systems got a new CEO last week. The company looked in-house to replace Bill Coleman, BEAs chief executive since it was founded in 1995.
Albert Chuang, who co-founded BEA with Coleman and has served as president and chief operating officer for the past two years, is taking over. Coleman will remain chairman of the board of directors and become the companys chief strategist, focusing on customers and employees.
BEA jumped into the lead of the application server market—estimated by Giga Information Group earlier this year at $3.5 billion—when it bought WebLogic in 1998. It holds an edge over such rivals as Oracle, Sun and IBM.
Mobile Is Top IT Concern
IT professionals are most concerned with mobile and wireless technology issues, according to a Gartner survey released last week.
Not surprisingly, in light of the recent terrorist attacks, disaster recovery and business continuity also made the top five list, coming in at No. 4.
Rounding out the top five issues cited are security and privacy at No. 2, CRM (customer relationship management) at No. 3 and Web services at No. 5.
The survey said all the issues are interrelated, such as making CRM applications available over mobile and wireless devices, extending security to those mobile and wireless devices, and using Web services in disaster recovery and business continuity plans.
DLT Businesses Go Toe to Toe
A minor battle brewing in the DLT cartridge business may affect future licensing deals and the price of the tapes themselves.
The digital linear tapes are sold by Quantum and licensees. Imation recently failed Quantums licensing certification process and is suing Quantum for $450 million, accusing the company of price fixing, monopolization and rigging the certification process.
Also, Imation last week launched a tape cartridge that is compatible with DLT-certified drives. Quantum wants the courts to stop Imation from selling the cartridge.