Hewlett-Packard and BEA Systems Announce $100 Million E-Commerce Deal

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP) and BEA Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS) announced on Wednesday a broad strategic alliance as part of HP’s e-services initiative. Reportedly, the purpose of this alliance is to provide HP’s and BEA’s customers with a complete software infrastructure for building reliable, high-performance e-commerce solutions and integrating enterprise applications.

According to the companies, the alliance represents a $100-million (US$) commitment from HP to BEA over the next three years for development, sales and support of integrated, cross-platform products and solutions for enterprise customers.

The Deal

According to Bill Coleman, chairman and chief executive officer of BEA, “This relationship combines the breadth of BEA’s application server and EAI middleware solutions with HP’s data-center expertise, to provide customers a rich foundation for building and deploying enterprise, mission-critical e-commerce applications.”

As part of this alliance, the companies reported that HP will resell and “aggressively” promote all of BEA’s products as HP’s premier cross-platform middleware solutions. The alliance expands the existing relationship between the two companies, and establishes a long-term commitment to providing Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) component-based e-commerce and EAI solutions.

According to Ann Livermore, president and chief executive officer of HP’s Enterprise Computing Solutions, “E-commerce today requires the ability to bring new electronic services to market rapidly with complete integration between existing IT infrastructure and the Internet. Together, we are ushering in the e-services generation of the Internet.”

The alliance provides for HP and BEA to jointly staff e-commerce solution centers throughout the world for helping customers build and deploy EAI and e-commerce solutions. In addition, HP and BEA will provide consulting services through HP Consulting and BEA Professional Services.

The Technology

Products included as part of this agreement are BEA eLink for enterprise application integration (EAI) and planned component-based e-commerce solutions built on BEA WebLogic enterprise application server and the BEA TUXEDO transaction server. For HP’s e-services initiative, the BEA eLink and component products will be developed on HP’s platforms and integrated with HP’s manageability, security, availability and business-process engineering technologies, including HP OpenView, HP Praesidium, HP MC/Service Guard, HP WebQoS, and HP ChangeEngine.

Unlike many e-commerce solutions, the HP and BEA e-services framework is reportedly an open, end-to-end, high-performance solution based on the leading distributed transaction platform, capable of linking e-business with the conventional data center.

Who’s BEA?

BEA Systems, Inc., provides middleware and Internet solutions for large-scale enterprise networks. BEA’s product line enables end-to-end, integrated solutions for electronic commerce and business-critical systems. The company is based in San Jose, Calif., and has 50 offices in 24 countries.