SAN MATEO (04/07/2000) - Middleware stalwart Iona Technologies Inc. this week rolled out key pieces of its application server strategy, extending its dual role as infrastructure provider as well as e-commerce and enterprise portal vendor.
While simplifying its core Orbix middleware line during the past year, the company has jumped into the application server market with enterprise portal and e-commerce wares. These moves reflect the overall market trend that has relegated so-called middleware plumbing to quasi-commodity status, forcing traditional middleware leaders to target higher-level development sectors.
Iona has reshuffled its core-product offerings to provide easier access to the underlying services, and it has worked to fill in gaps in its higher-level tools line, according to Annrai O'Toole, CTO at Iona.
"We had, I think it's fair to say, a relatively complex product offering -- what I'd call the Orbix mumble strategy," O'Toole said. "We wanted to simplify that."
At the Iona World conference in Boston, officials heralded the iPortal Integration Server, application integration software that supports OMG (Object Management Group); CORBA; XML; Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE); COM (Component Object Model); CICS; and IIOP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol).
Iona officials also touted the shipment of the iPortal OS/390 Server, its ORB (object request broker) and integration platform for the IBM OS/390 mainframe; and OrbixSecurity 3.0, its CORBA Security Service Level 2-compliant e-commerce security software co-developed with Concept Five Technologies.
Attending to its middleware infrastructure, Orbix 3, Iona announced core ORB product updates, including business-to-business-oriented application-integration features. Iona also entered into a cross-licensing and joint-development deal with Progress Software through which Iona gains access to Progress' SonicMQ Java Messaging Server (JMS).
Iona Technologies Inc., in Dublin, Ireland, is at www.iona.com.
Iona's infrastructure play
The company's goal blends services and servers.
* iPortal Integration Server: Application integration software* iPortal OS/390 Server: Object request broker (ORB) and integration platform* OrbixSecurity 3.0: E-commerce security software* Orbix 3: Core ORB product updates* iPortal Framework: Tools for developing iPortal applications* Licensing of Progress Software's SonicMQ Java Messaging Server (JMS)* iPortal Server: Portal access and control server.