BEA Systems Inc. is planning to release this week a new version of its application suite targeted at its ISV partners.

WebLogic Platform ISV Edition is an integrated suite that features core BEA technology that is due to ship with partners' commercial software products, said officials in San Jose, Calif.

In addition to bolstering its partners' offerings with an integrated suite of middleware, BEA officials said the new offering also will help partners "jump-start" their SOA (service-oriented architecture) initiatives.

"Our ISVs wanted easily integratable middleware that is SOA-ready," said Bobby Napiltonia, BEA vice president and general manager of the worldwide channels and alliances group. "A lot of our partners want to know, How can I continue to leverage what I have and make it SOA-ready and stay true to my initial investment?"

Robert Flannigan, technology strategist in BEA's worldwide channels and alliances group, said WebLogic Platform ISV Edition "is a bundled, well-integrated package of middleware with an application server, integration, portal and user interface. As SOA comes along, the core business goals around time-to-value are met with the application platform suite."

WebLogic Platform ISV Edition includes WebLogic Server, the WebLogic Workshop development environment, the WebLogic JRockit JVM (Java virtual machine), WebLogic Portal and WebLogic Integration.

Napiltonia said BEA has already signed several ISVs to deals featuring the ISV edition, including Veritas Software Corp., EMC Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Cyclone Commerce Inc.

Thomas Murphy, an analyst with Meta Group Inc., in Stamford, Conn., said one of the biggest issues at work with the release "is how to protect BEA's presence in the ISV market from open source."

"An issue for ISVs is the cost of the license and the resources available," Murphy said. "Obviously, the open-source products offer nowhere near the breadth of features at this point that this package from BEA offers, but I think of the idea being BEA wants to make it attractive to think about delivering software utilizing a broader set of features from BEA. This helps cement a closer relationship between BEA and the ISV and delivers to users applications that should have the advantages: integration; SOA; i.e., the applications the ISV builds are built for integration."

BEA is also targeting systems integrators with the release. "This is part of our channel strategy," Napiltonia said. "SIs are looking at what their SOA strategy is going to be as well."

Meta Group's Murphy said, "The real bottom line for BEA is they want people—ISVs, in particular—to build on their platform and create components because this will drive the overall success of the platform, similar to the relationship between [Microsoft Corp.'s] Windows, VB [Visual Basic] and VB Controls, and Windows-certified applications. BEA has the platform. It has the tools. It needs the applications and components."

This article was first published on eweek.com.