BEA Systems Inc is increasing its use of TSI International Software Ltd’s Mercator data translation software by agreeing to resell the product for use with its entire range of Elink e- commerce middleware solutions. Elink is the software that Hewlett-Packard Co will be using as part of its $100m pact with BEA.
Previously BEA had only sold a specific configuration of TSI’s enterprise application integration software for use with SAP. Now BEA will resell a superset of Mercator that supports PeopleSoft as well as business-to-business applications. The two have co- developed a wrapper for Mercator that enables it to run as a service under BEA’s Tuxedo OLTP monitor.
While TSI dominates the market for SAP integration software with around a 50% market share it hopes that other deals like this, as well as the new vertical application strategies it is working on will diminish its reliance on the SAP revenue stream. BEA sales currently account for a very small portion of its revenue. TSI lost $0.2m on sales of $17.2m in its most recent quarter. It hopes that international revenue will be worth at least 30% of its overall business in 1999, compared with 13% in 1998. It denies competitors’ claims that it uses a procedural programming model that makes rules in it engine hard to change.
