IBM is to bundle its WebSphere application server software with
forthcoming versions of Lotus Domino 6, which will be formally
introduced next week.
The move is designed to open the Domino platform to the world of
Web services and J2EE, and to expose the Domino platform to
WebSphere application developers.
"We are trying to guide our installed base towards the richer set
of Web services and J2EE-based applications, as well as continue to
open up Domino to people who are writing J2EE-based apps today,"
said Ken Bisconti, vice-president of messaging solutions at IBM
Lotus Software.
The revelation of planned J2EE 1.3 support in January at the
Lotusphere user conference generated a wave of outrage among
customers and developers who were concerned about IBM's commitment
to Domino's future.
"There were some questions from partners earlier this year, there
was concern about would we be introducing any roadblocks or new
hurdles or new requirements," Bisconti admitted.
Delivering a free bundle of WebSphere "gives an aggressive
incentive to our customers to get them on that path to Web services
and J2EE-based applications", he said.
Domino 6 customers will not receive the WebSphere application
server in its entirety, but rather will get a licence entitlement
to WebSphere and a URL where they can register to get the
code.
To achieve integration with WebSphere, IBM made some modifications
to the Domino Java API, conducted testing with WebSphere, and built
points of integration for single sign-on support.
WebSphere will also provide both the J2EE runtime as well as JSP
runtime, allowing developers to use the JSP tag library to call
services from Domino.
Furthermore, IBM said it is building a plug-in for Domino to its
Eclipse development toolset to give Eclipse developers native
access to the Domino JSP library.
"That is how you would effectively code any of these apps that use
domino combined with WebSphere," Bisconti said.
The bundle will allow Domino developers to ease gracefully into Web
services. As IBM Lotus has alluded to in the past, the entire Lotus
product portfolio is on track to be native participants in J2EE
development and runtime environments, he added.
"Our strategy of contextual collaboration is to componentize our
entire portfolio so developers or ISVs could just call on
individual services from our portfolio through Web services
interfaces. This is the first milestone in Domino's evolution to
that realm," Bisconti said.