Big Blue beefs up messaging platform

IBM will this month ship a version of its MQSeries middleware which uses third-party software to increase the messaging platform?s flexibility, writes Gavin Clarke.

MQSeries Integrator will incorporate message brokering software from New Era of Networks (Neon). The Neon software will allow MQSeries to direct data between applications according to user-set rules, and will format messages to enable applications to share data.

The rules engine will support multiple connections to different applications, servers and databases, and will automatically convert between different applications? file formats. This will reduce the development work required to link new applications ? such as ERP packages ? to an existing environment.

IBM?s MQSeries marketing manager, Alan Somerville Brown, said: ?Organisations want to connect applications together and have more flexibility. Previously, if you wanted to connect applications to other applications, you had to hardwire them together. Lately that?s got very difficult to do.?

Because of MQSeries? complex configuration and cost, the Integrator package is being aimed at established IBM users. Pricing for Integrator for Windows NT servers will start at approximately #50,000. Integrator and Workflow will need to be added to Web servers such as Domino, rather than ship as an integral part of specific server products.

Mike Gilpin, vice president of analyst Giga Information Group, said: ?The application integration market is taking off. MQ is increasingly seen by many as a de facto standard, and IBM was being criticized for not having a complete solution.?

Legal publisher Butterworths, which built its Web site using Microsoft?s Site Server 3.0, said it preferred to use a messaging system which is integrated with a Web server and does not require configuration.

Ivan Derby, publisher of Butterworths Electronic, said: ?We can send people on mainstream training courses and still set up a Web server with Microsoft taking care of the hard bits.?