BEA has launched an initiative aimed to establish a Java
community around its WebLogic application server.The application server giant began its annual
eWorld conference on 3 March, unveiling details of the forthcoming
BEA WebLogic 8.1, the next incarnation of the company's application
server platform and the Dev2Dev support network for Bea
developers.
Commenting on Dev2Dev, John Kiger, director of
product marketing at BEA said, "For a modest annual fee we are
providing Bea developers with premium technical support five days a
week, trial software and a quarterly CD-ROM."
The new WebLogic server is expected to be
released in the summer. Kiger said the new version promises to
lower the bar of Java development by allowing developers to use
off-the shelf Java components rather than master the complexity of
Enterprise Java beans programming.
"We are providing a unified development
environment," said Kiger. The tools within WebLogic 8.1 would allow
developers to build general purpose applications based on the Java
2.0 Enterprise Edition specification, he said.
"In many organisations, only 10% of developers
have the necessary skills needed to build J2EE applications," Kiger
explained. "We are providing a development environment in WebLogic
8.1 so that developers do not have to understand the J2EE
architecture."
One way this is being achieved is through a
relationship with software component marketplace Component
Source.
Sam Patterson, chief executive officer of
Component Source, said his company was building a marketplace for
third-party WebLogic components. Patterson said the marketplace had
400 components from 37 suppliers. "We are seeing the biggest demand
for charting components."
While the BEA strategy should lower the bar
for developing J2EE applications, Ovum analyst Gary Barnett was not
convinced the strategy was sustainable.
"The strategy won't make a massive difference
to Java development," said Barnett. The risk for any user
considering Bea development tools was that BEA was moving beyond
its traditional competency of providing Java infrastructure, he
noted.