Company to focus on 'SOA enablement' Web services management vendor Actional and Westbridge Technology, which sold security infrastructure for Web services, are merging to focus on what company officials call “SOA (service-oriented architecture) enablement.”The new company, bearing the Actional name, will join Actional’s Looking Glass management and agent technology with the Westbridge XMS (XML Message Server) console to form the Actional SOA Command and Control Center. Set for release in 30 days with prices starting at $75,000, the offering will provide a modular SOA enablement capability for managing an SOA.“This really sets out a new category of offering for the marketplace,” said Dan Foody, Actional CTO. “SOA Command and Control is the first solution to offer a minimum of capabilities for customers in terms of addressing some of the key cross-functionality and application-specific needs people have,” such as security and management, Foody said. An analyst said the merger of Actional and Westbridge, featuring management and security technologies for Web services, could make the company a more enticing acquisition target by a larger vendor. “That means that a larger infrastructure player can now acquire this functionality without having to make two acquisitions,” said Frank Kenney, research analyst at Gartner.The merger did not involve an exchange of cash between the companies, although Actional has raised $12.8 million in new funding from investors as a result of the deal. Tom Ryan, who was president and CEO of Westbridge, will continue these roles at Actional. Software Development