BEA Boosts Marketplace Efforts With Workflow Automation Deal

BEA Systems Inc. said today it is acquiring the Workflow Automation Corp., a privately held software company, in a move to equip itself with the technology to accelerate its business-to-business E-market integration strategy. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Through the acquisition, BEA gains access to Workflow Automation's jFlow business-process engine--a Java-based workflow-management system that performs application integration across the Internet. BEA will integrate jFlow into its business-to-business collaboration architecture, called Project E-collaborate, and relaunch it in the third quarter as BEA E-Process Integrator. The new product will let E-commerce companies build and manage trading communities, according to BEA.

Once the integration is complete, BEA E-Process Integrator will be interoperable with other BEA products and will also run as an independent workflow engine on BEA's WebLogic server. This configuration allows E-commerce shopping components to be linked to a company's procurement and financial systems, to provide real-time product availability and delivery times.

In addition to acquiring Workflow Automation's technology, BEA will utilize the software-development expertise of its staff of 15, who will join BEA's E-commerce Integration Division. As a technology center based at Workflow Automation's headquarters in Ontario, Canada, the team will focus on developing Enterprise JavaBeans workflow software. Workflow Automation CEO Abe Schwartz will assume a senior executive position at BEA.

BEA says it will continue to market Workflow Automation's software to its customers, which include Computer Associates, the Royal Bank of Canada, and Sun Life Assurance of Canada.