Candle Corp has gone ahead with its plans to link IBM Corp’s MQSeries messaging software with Microsoft Corp’s Falcon, despite the breaking up of the deal it had with Level8 Systems Inc for gateway products (CI No 3,265). As part of its Roma open messaging initiative (CI No 3,255), Candle has announced what it calls an auto bridge between MQSeries and Falcon, promising that the software will go into beta testing by next month. Phase 1 of Roma enabled customers to write applications which could be ported between the two systems using a common applications programming interface, and catalogued via the LDAP lightweight directory mechanism. The newly announced auto bridge extends this for those using both systems at the same time, by automatically invoking the appropriate messaging system when an application is picked out of the directory. It’s just-in-time bridging, says Candle chief executive officer Aubrey Chernick. Applications can run over multiple middleware messaging systems with no changes, he said. Candle had originally opted to use Level8’s FalconMQ messaging gateway product, but began developing its own after philosophical differences between the two firms began to emerge. Chernick says that both IBM and Microsoft messaging systems will continue to co-exist in the marketplace, with MQSeries used where multi-vendor systems support is the important issue, and Falcon used only when NT is involved. Roma, described by Chernick as the first stage of a longer term roadmap, begins its beta-testing program this week in Wall Street. Candle now has 165 people, around 11% of its workforce, concentrating on messaging.
