CrossWeave Unveils Internet Application Integration Platform

CrossWeave Inc. took the wraps off its Internet application integration platform this week, at a time when corporate IT departments are investing more resources than ever in tying together disparate systems to link internal departments and external business partners in extended supply chains.

The Oakland, Calif., startup's unique take on the EAI challenge is its focus on enabling business processes and human collaboration across multiple applications. "We let companies create composite apps without requiring changes to the original apps," says CrossWeave chief technology officer Sean Fitts. "We're helping companies automate the business processes that lead up to transactions such as product purchases over the Web."

The company, which was started in May 2000, sees big return-on-investment gains in this approach to integration. Companies are less willing to embark on long, arduous projects, having lived through costly ERP implementations, so they're looking to release the untapped value in their existing systems, Fitts says.

While most EAI products require a highly skilled architect to create the needed business logic and to implement the integration infrastructure, CrossWeave can be implemented by developers or administrators with JavaScript and XML skills.

Observers say CrossWeave may have hit on a unique solution to what will be a growing business requirement--complex collaborations. "CrossWeave will enable complex buying on a Web site, for example, in which one application needs to interact with another. That seems like a pretty universal requirement," says John Mann, a senior analyst with the Patricia Seybold Group.

Omnicell Inc., a provider of workflow automation for the health-care industry, is using CrossWeave to launch a supplier network and to leverage suppliers' existing Web-site functionality and applications. The software eliminated the need for complex joint development between the suppliers during the integration process and let the participants integrate data, business logic, and functionality without changing the systems they already had in place.