Fiorina used an opening BEA eWorld developer conference keynote speech to announce a proposed web services management framework, extensions to HP’s OpenView software, an organizational tweak to support management and deployment of Java-based web services.

Fiorina’s keynote promoted HP’s partnership with San Jose, California-based BEA among that company’s 500,000-strong developer community. Such programmers face application development and integration issues, she said, yet have been maligned by IBM who offers its own consultants to solve companies’ integration issues.

Singling-out a well-worn IBM TV advertising campaign, she said IBM has blamed IT staff for offering their companies false technology promises – a time machine, pixie dust and the promise to change the world. Fiorina said the commercials are aimed at the IT programmers’ colleagues in line-of-business rather than technology.

We at HP take offense, she said. HP, BEA and Intel are companies of inventors. We don’t think IT people should be blamed.

BEA founder, chairman and chief executive Alfred Chuang said external consultants came armed with MBAs but lacked knowledge of technologies and skills for integration. [Until now] Integration has been for outside consultants and MBAs, not for people like us, he said.

Chuang said the latest version of BEA’s WebLogic Platform, which he announced during an opening keynote speech at the Orlando, Florida, event would provide development and integration skills for developers to see-off MBA-touting consultants. WebLogic 8.1 extends the company’s simplified Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based Workshop development environment to portal and integration software. BEA’s goal is to let developers in one field, such as portal, build for a different area, such as integration. Previously, Workshop was integrated only with BEA’s application server.

Integration can’t be done right without the right skills sets. The consultants and MBAs are integrating something they don’t know much about. You can talk integration or you can do integration with the right skill sets. With [WebLogic Platform] 8.1 you might just get a pay rise, Chuang joked.

Management of web services topped Fiorina’s list of ways in which the company can best help developers. In an organizational tweak, she announced a dedicated HP practice that would assist customers in the management and deployment of J2EE web services. Fiorina said HP’s practice would number 1,000 people by the end of 2003.

HP has also developed a suite of software components, the OpenView Web Services Management Engine, for its OpenView management software for web services. The engine will allow customers to intercept web services requests and manage the services.

The company is also working with un-named partners, she said, to submit a web services management framework to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The framework, due in the next few weeks, will allow developers to model and design relationships between applications and web services the company said.

Source: Computerwire