New Telecommunications Services Will Run On Middleware, BEA SaysNew Telecommunications Services Will Run On Middleware, BEA Says

The chaotic telecommunications industry needs new middleware to help it provide customers with the mix of voice, data, and wireless services they want.

While Java application servers have helped telecommunications companies run their back-office billing systems, they now need application servers to administer new, customer-facing applications and deliver new services such as voice over Internet Protocol and instant messaging over IP, said Mark Carges, chief technology officer of BEA Systems Inc. "The line is blurring between the application server and the telecommunications server," Carges said Monday at a BEA press conference in San Francisco. The company announced its WebLogic Session Initiation Protocol Server or SIP Server for telecommunications companies, an industry segment where BEA already enjoys a strong market presence.

SIP is unlike switching protocols in that it can respond to varied software "events" and initiate a communications connection based on voice, video, instant messaging, images, or some other means of expression. The SIP Server will implement a set of protocols that are now standard in the telecommunications industry, including both SIP and VOIP.

Unlike point-to-point switching for a telephone system based on copper wires, new services will be based on the Internet and may go out to many different devices, from personal computers to BlackBerry hand-held devices to cell phones. The content of a service may be the same for different users, but it will have to be sent in different formats to match the user's device, explained Benjamin Renaud, BEA's senior director of telecommunications products.

In addition to the SIP Server, which is currently available, BEA announced the WebLogic Network Gatekeeper to be released later this spring. The Gatekeeper will allow a service provider to set and enforce policies that control access to and govern sets of services. It also would ensure quality of service.

Alfred Chuang, CEO of BEA Systems, said the era of telecommunications companies engaging in a continuous price war "and killing each other off is over." In its place will come sets of new services from the survivors who try to match up multiple customer needs with packages tailored to them.

"A new world order is emerging and the whole thing is running on a software platform," Chuang said at the press conference.

The SIP Server, Network Gatekeeper, and future BEA products will compose the BEA WebLogic Communications Platform. They will all be built around the WebLogic Application Server, which has been a basic building block of enterprise software, along with competing products from IBM, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems.

Rob Rich, Yankee Group telecommunications analyst, predicted that competition will emerge as other vendors gear their Java application servers to the communications marketplace.

Renaud said the use of middleware in communications represents the convergence of Java standards, now well-established in the enterprise software market, with communications standards set on the Internet. The two will open a new era of more-flexible communications services, he predicted.

Rich, also speaking at BEA's press conference, said his daughter recently discovered she couldn't wear a dress to the Homecoming ball two hours before the event was to begin. She put out an E-mail SOS to 200 classmates, and within an hour had four offers of replacements, three accompanied by digital images. Said Rich, "Kids today don't make phone calls. They use communications."