BEA ships Web 2.0 products

BEA Systems will ship the three products featured in its social computing suite geared for Web 2.0 on Monday.

The three products introduce modes of ad hoc collaboration and participation-driven experiences, said Jay Simons, BEA director of product marketing. Additionally, they take innovations spawned on the consumer Internet and apply them to the enterprise, adding security, governance, and management, he said.

With the products, BEA is looking to empower users in the workplace, the company said. All bearing the AquaLogic nameplate, the three products include:

* Pages, which is a mashup builder for business users to put together simple Web applications for business situations.

* Ensemble, for Web application developers to build developer-oriented mashups featuring Web resources.

* Pathways, featuring social bookmarking, tagging, and the ability to form social networks in an enterprise context.

In touting its new products, BEA has been able to communicate how the suite can make a business become more efficient, said analyst Frank Kenney, research director at Gartner. BEA has been citing examples involving mashups and applications, he said.

“They’re starting to tell stories and give credible examples of how those Web 2.0 [capabilities] can make your business agile,” Kenney said.

But BEA has been lacking in details on how governance and control are maintained over the applications built with the products, he said.

“I think that I haven’t seen enough detail about the mechanics of the technology. For instance, BEA hasn’t given me a message or hasn’t told me about how these technologies fit into their overall SOA governance initiatives,” Kenney said.

A Java application server is required to use the products but not necessarily BEA’s application server, Simons said.

Pricing for the products individually is either $40,000 per CPU or $64 per user.