BEA systems is offering ColdFusion users the ability to run their ColdFusion applications on the BEA WebLogic Server without requiring a rewrite.

BEA, based in San Jose, Calif., announced on April 17 the availability of BlueDragon, BEA WebLogic Edition. The software, which is from New Atlanta Communications and licensed by BEA, helps users modernize and extend legacy CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language) applications to run on BEA WebLogic Server 9.0, BEA officials said.

"Several of our customers are still using CFML to run their businesses," Wai Wong, executive vice president of products at BEA, said in a statement.

"Today's BlueDragon announcement is further proof of BEA's commitment to helping customers improve application performance and leverage their existing IT assets in service-oriented environments. It's also another example of how the company is continuing to invest in WebLogic Server and find new ways to help customers get to a modern app server without a lot of pain," Wong said.

Doug Chambers, IT applications administrator for the Atlanta-based Georgia Department of Transportation, said in a statement that BlueDragon is a valuable application that has allowed him "to standardize our enterprise architecture and leverage, modernize and extend legacy applications throughout our IT systems without costly investments.

"We're excited by the extensive product evolution possibilities that having a big, reputable company like BEA [to] stand behind affords," Chambers said.

ColdFusion has supported WebLogic Server for some time. As early as January 2003, Macromedia, since acquired by Adobe Systems, announced the availability of Macromedia ColdFusion MX for BEA WebLogic Server, allowing Web application developers without Java programming skills to leverage ColdFusion MX to build and deploy applications on the BEA WebLogic Enterprise Platform.

BEA officials said WebLogic Server has continued to gain momentum in the market to the point that BEA has achieved a 12 percent increase in year-over-year licensing revenue from WebLogic. This suggests that "we are taking share away from our competition," Wong said in a statement.

Indeed, BEA officials said WebLogic Server continues to outpace BEA competitors such as IBM, JBoss and Oracle in three primary areas: product releases and updates, benchmark scores, and reviews and awards.

In a December interview with eWeek, BEA CEO Alfred Chuang said he believes BEA has advantages over certain open-source competitors.

"I think the marketplace so wants to believe there's a transition that everything is going to become open-source," said Chuang. "They are believing in something that really doesn't exist. Will JBoss work? I think yes. Only if the J2EE [Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition] APIs become obsolete. If they become a commodity and nobody programs to J2EE anymore, then people will use JBoss. Because then you can pop in JBoss and put it on WebLogic on the fly. We're not there yet. JBoss is not Linux, and Linux is not free."

Then getting prescient in that December interview, Chuang said, "Even if JBoss becomes part of, I don't know, Red Hat, it's a different model. Linux has an 'open' source community. JBoss does not have an open community: not everybody can join."

BEA support for ColdFusion

Here is how BEA is helping leverage legacy applications, sans rewritting:

* BlueDragon technology provides ColdFusion support by enabling CFML-based applications to run on BEA WebLogic Server 9.0

* BEA licenses BlueDragon technology from New Atlanta Communications

Source: eWEEK reporting

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.