Company officials say the acquisition of ConnecTerra will integrate RFID across business units, applications and processes.

BEA Systems Inc. Tuesday announced the acquisition of ConnecTerra, a Cambridge, Mass.-based RFID middleware developer.

BEA officials said the acquisition will enhance the company's infrastructure software line and integrate Radio Frequency Identification and other device data as "liquid assets" available across a company's business units, applications and processes.

The companies did not disclose the value of the deal. BEA announced the acquisition at its BEAWorld 2005 in London Tuesday.

San Jose, Calif.-based BEA said more than 25 consumer packaged goods, retail and transportation companies and system integrators use ConnecTerra technology. ConnecTerra was founded in 2001.

"ConnecTerra is an exciting acquisition for BEA and our customers," said Alfred Chuang, BEA's chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement. "Most of the early RFID adopters are already using BEA and ConnecTerra technologies."

Indeed, BEA officials said BEA and ConnecTerra have been working together over the past year helping customers use BEA's software with ConnecTera's RFID solution.

Wai Wong, BEA's executive vice president of products, also in a statement, said: "RFID can enable a fundamental step change in supply chain visibility, and many companies are connecting RFID hardware into existing IT assets. RFID is also generating a flood of new data at the edge.

"To leverage this enhanced visibility, enterprises need to establish the right architecture to filter and translate RFID data into business relevant events, and then to use these events to create and automate new RFID-enabled business processes. The acquisition of ConnecTerra helps boost our portfolio to help those customers leverage their enterprise assets in a unified way, from the edge all the way to the data center."

Click here to read about BEA's real-time version of WebLogic.

ConnecTerra's RFID infrastructure software is designed to provide the core communications, security, policy and device management services that can be used to integrate devices into a wide range of applications.

BEA will hold a press conference Tuesday morning to discuss details of the deal.

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.

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