With the seventh generation of its WebSphere software, IBM redefines the state of the art in Java platforms for the enterprise.

The WebSphere 7 product family provides application development and delivery pros with new ways to optimize their application architectures, more development frameworks, automatic transactional reliability, simpler configuration and management, and improved stack integration for BPM, portal, and eCommerce projects. For shops struggling with scale, complexity, and high performance in their Java applications, WebSphere 7 may offer both relief and a simpler, easier-to-manage stack. WebSphere 7 also lays the foundation for cloud architectures and multicore hardware.

IBM, Oracle, and Red Hat JBoss will play leapfrog in Java platforms for the foreseeable future. But clients should evaluate the three leading vendors of Java platforms based on their primary goals for their software, not just by comparing features (and certainly not by comparing public benchmarks). With WebSphere 7, IBM has created a transaction monitor for Java. This goal reflects IBM's primary goals of reliability, integrity, and manageability in WebSphere. In this way, WebSphere is IBM's CICS for the Internet age.

IBM's second primary goal is to create integrated platform stacks. The WebSphere Process Server-WebSphere ILOG-Business Space-WebSphere Application Server combination is one such stack; WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Commerce are other integrated stacks.

Customers should always check the reality before assuming comprehensive integration in IBM's burgeoning WebSphere portfolio. Stack integration will always be a moving target for customers because IBM adds so many acquisitions every year. But IBM's product management regime makes it fairly easy for clients to identify which IBM stacks have high internal integration and which do not.

Compared with IBM, Oracle is also providing reliability and manageability, but its primary goals are stack integration and developer productivity. And Red Hat JBoss' primary goal is creation of compelling combinations of advanced Java application server features and low-cost packaging.

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