Middleware giant BEA Systems plans to extend the functionality of its business process management (BPM) product, following its acquisition earlier this year of BPM specialist Fuego.

The Fuego BPM suite, which has been rebranded as AquaLogic BPM, will gain a new rules engine and better process management functionality to help firms automatically optimise their processes, said Mark Carges, executive vice-president for BEA's business interaction division, speaking at a briefing on the future of the suite yesterday [12 June].

"For example, if you are running a process like handling an insurance claim, because the system runs thousands of these processes it will be able to see what the likely outcome is for any set of circumstances,” said Carges. "As a result we will be able to introduce automated decision-making as the process is running."

This new functionality, combined with enhanced graphical tools, is expected in the next full launch of AquaLogic BPM, which Carges said is due in the first half of 2007.

Before that, version 5.7 of the suite with new process templates and easier installation tools is expected in the autumn.

Separately, Carges said BEA would tighten integration between its various AquaLogic service-oriented architecture (SOA) management products to make it easier for IT staff to build composite applications.

However, he added that BEA still lacks the integrated composition environment that will be required to provide unified toolsets so users can compose and manage a service or process from a central point rather than through separate SOA products.

Carges promised further announcements on how BEA plans to plug this gap at the AquaLogic portfolio at the annual BEA eWorld conference in September.

Teresa Jones of analyst Butler group said that as more firms adopt SOA strategies they will need easier composition environments so they can quickly develop composite applications in response to changing business requirements. However, she added that because few firms have developed comprehensive SOA environments few currently have the underlying infrastructure to take advantage of such composition technology.