Bea Iceberg Object Transaction Monitor Launches As M3

Computergram International, June 3, 1998

BEA Systems Inc yesterday duly launched its object transaction monitor, formerly code-named Iceberg (CI No 3,421), and now to be known as M3, which it believes is the first production-ready enterprise strength framework for deployment of object and component-based applications. The company is hailing M3 as the third generation of middleware, enabling the rapid deployment of objects in mission critical systems.

Fifty-seven customers have been part of a nine month early adopter program for the product, and Ed Scott, founder and executive vice president worldwide field operations says the company is therefore satisfied the product is ready for general availability. He does not see too much immediate threat from IBM Corp, which has Component Broker based on its Encina transaction processing monitor, currently in 'limited release' but due out by the end of this year. When it does come, Scott is confident there will be plenty of business for everyone. Equally, he is not losing any sleep over Microsoft Corp's announcement that it will integrate the COM component object model with CORBA through integration with Iona's Object Transaction Monitor, in Microsoft Transaction Server middleware (CI No 3,421). "When I think of a list of things I worry about," says Scott, "Mic rosoft and Iona aren't on that list." Even if Microsoft were to end up with 100% of the middleware market for NT, Scott reckons there will be plenty left for everyone else, and he points to BEA's reputation in high-end enterprise systems, where neither Microsoft nor Iona have yet made their mark. BEA's vice president of product planning and strategy talks of middleware in terms of "pipes and platforms", where the pipe is the communication necessary to enable applications to talk to each other, and includes Object Request Brokers and messaging software, but the platform goes beyond the pipe to provide complete management of applications and include features such as scalability, security, availability. M3, she says, provides the platform on which to build mission critical - by which the company means any application however large or small on which a company totally depends to do its business - systems using objects. M3 provides developers with a framework which includes many of the CORBA Common Object Request Broker standards, and also offers design patterns that suggest architectural designs to developers, which the company says means the developer can get on with building applications and not worry about interfacing with the middleware. It is based on BEA's Tuxedo transaction processing monitor, and combines this with the ObjectBroker technology it acquired from Digital Equipment Corp last year (CI No 3,103), so the company claims it is all based on proven technology. BEA says it will provide a "seamless" upgrade path for Tuxedo users, so that companies can begin to incorporate object-based applications at their own pace. The company is also committed to combining Tuxedo and the Top End technology it acquired from NCR Corp last month (CI No 3,415), and says Top End users will also benefit from the migratory path to M3. The product is due for worldwide general availability with support for C servers on July 24 on Digital Unix, HP-UX, AIX, Windows NT for Intel and Alpha, and Sun Solaris. M3 with support for Enterprise Java Beans is due to begin its early adopter program in the fall.