IBM Makes Web Services Product Updates
WebSphere Portal and CrossWorlds
On Monday IBM announced two of its enterprise software products received updates to better reflect the technology environment. WebSphere Portal hit an incremental upgrade, adding Web services and collaboration features, while IBM’s CrossWorlds division added support for Siebel.
IBM announced WebSphere Portal 4.1 yesterday on a conference call for analysts and journalists. The company highlighted the new release’s new ability to publish as a Web service and advanced collaboration features.
The portal now allows enterprises to plug the portal server into a UDDI registry and make portlets available as Web services. Portlets are plug-ins from ISVs to integrate applications easily with WebSphere portal. Since portals are frequently deployed as a means to make enterprise applications more accessible to end-users, publishing as a Web service further expands the ways an application can reach users.
The new release also adds collaboration features to help workers find and communicate with other workers. Users can use the portal to create buddy lists within the organization, and know whether their buddies are online or not. The software also enables workers to create virtual spaces to share data within a working group or hold online conferences.
The CrossWorlds division, which IBM purchased last year also announced a product update. Its said it had released a middleware module to connect Siebel Universal Application Network to IBM middleware. Universal Application Network solves process integration problems across the enterprise.
About the Author
Chris McConnell is Product and Technology Editor for Enterprise Systems.