BEA Systems Inc is ready to launch its Iceberg object transaction monitor this week, just as Microsoft Corp is set to reveal its own plans in the same market. BEA has been working up to the Iceberg launch for a year, at just about the same time that Iona Technologies Ltd began to talk about object transaction monitors, and plans a New York event on Tuesday to introduce the new software. Meanwhile Microsoft will use its TechEd 98 event in New Orleans to announce its plans for the COM component object model and Microsoft Transaction Server middleware (CI No 3,416). The rumor mill suggests that Microsoft will announce its plans to integrate COM with CORBA common object request broker technology through integration with Iona’s Object Transaction Monitor, moving the worlds of COM and Corba common object request broker technology closer together. Microsoft licensed COM technology to Iona back in January, and Iona hailed the move as the end of the Corba-COM wars (CI No 3,334). Such a move would put pressure on BEA. Iceberg is the integration of the Tuxedo transaction processing monitor BEA originally acquired from Novell Inc with the ObjectBroker and DECmessageQ software it acquired from Digital Equipment Corp. BEA began showing off early versions of the technology to customers back in February (CI No 3,353). Recently, the Sunnyvale, California-based company boosted its object skills by acquiring the Leader Group (CI No 3,409), and last week acquired NCR Corp’s Top End transaction processing middleware to supplement the Tuxedo TP software it bought from Novell Inc a few years ago (CI No 3,415).
