New tool eases asynchronous integration between apps across disparate platforms September 15, 1999 — Progress Software next week will announce Progress SonicMQ, among the first enterprise messaging middleware products to leverage the Java Message Service (JMS) specification. By using the Java specification, part of Sun Microsystems’ Java 2 Enterprise Edition, Progress SonicMQ aims to make it easier for Java developers to take advantage of asynchronous integration capabilities among and between applications across disparate platforms.“There is an immediate need for full platform- and application-server-independent support of messaging,” said Steve Garone, analyst at IDC, in Framingham, Massachusetts. “With SonicMQ, Progress has brought to Java developers a high-performance, easy-to-use-and-administer JMS solution.”Going beyond the relatively new JMS specification, SonicMQ can distribute workloads, and it supports extensible markup language types, uses graphically based administration, and has the ability to address topics in a hierarchical nature, said Progress officials. Not only will JMS be used to integrate disparate applications, but Progress expects it to soon integrate disparate messaging protocols as well, such as IBM’s MQSeries and Microsoft Message Queue, as well as application integration products like Neon.“Where we see this going is everyone will have gateways to JMS. We see the enterprise application integration world with gateways into JMS, and that will be into SonicMQ,” said George Kassabgi, vice president of marketing at Progress. “We’ll have a way of having these things interoperate.”SonicMQ, when it arrives in free beta form Oct. 4 and in final form in November, will be available in two editions: SonicMQ Enterprise Edition on Windows NT and Solaris and the free SonicMQ Developer Edition on Windows NT. SonicMQ will also be integrated into the newest Progress Apptivity Server, code-named Vader, due in second quarter of 2000. Web DevelopmentJava