According to Gartner, Java has penetrated as many enterprises as Visual Basic. The implications of this evolution in Java adoption highlight some cruel realities. Java, and by extension J2EE, are no longer niche technologies. The benefits of Java - combining code reuse and scalability - are well understood and validated. Enterprises worldwide have been investing billions of dollars in Web-based applications for years, and it's time to demonstrate a return on investment.

This month WLDJ focuses on third-party integration. We cover products that integrate at different levels of the BEA e-business platform, and have guest editorials from vendors who have successfully partnered with BEA to provide closely integrated solutions on top of WebLogic Server. Speaking of partnering...I am sorry for using the term 'partner,' as I think it's overused. It seems like every technology company in existence has at least one press release about a partnership with another firm to 'take advantage of synergies,' or 'to comarket products and services that complement each other.'

In a March 2002 survey by Morgan Stanley, 225 CIOs listed extending their current IT investments through application integration as their number one priority. This is not surprising. Given the slow economy, many Fortune 500 companies are putting off large new packaged-application initiatives, and are looking to make do with what they've got. Why start a multimillion-dollar ERP project when half the company's users can't make use of the applications that are already installed (or sitting on the shelf)?

'Migration,' in terms of J2EE, generally means good things for a project or application. It means bug fixes from a previous version, new features to make your life easier (whether you are a developer or a system administrator), and often it means performance, fault-tolerance, and scalability enhancements.

Finally, let's talk tools. Many tool vendors are making noise about transaction response times. But a closer look reveals that the analysis some tools provide is in fact highly tier-specific, leaving you with only a partial view of transaction throughput. Production- monitoring tools, for example, provide response-time metrics without any data to identify where in the transaction execution path the performance is degrading.

The much awaited WebLogic Server 7.0 beta release was announced on Feb. 24, 2002, at BEA's eWorld conference in San Diego. Continuing in its path as the Number 1 Web application server, WLS 7.0 implements J2EE 1.3 technologies, Web services, and other Internet standards to provide a reliable framework for highly available, scalable, and secure applications.

Web services. Who needs them? You will. Indeed, I have. As a proof of concept for a wireless company, I wrote an application that allowed users to manage a fantasy football team from any WAP-enabled handheld. Users could set their lineup for the big day, or add and drop players from their roster. You know, the basics of running a fantasy team.

Welcome to the eWorld issue of BEA WebLogic Developers Journal! Each year WebLogic developers and managers make a pilgrimage to eWorld to meet with vendors hawking wares in the exhibit hall, to listen to BEA visionaries in jam-packed sessions, and perhaps most of all, to see what new, cool stuff BEA will announce at the show! Well, comrades, many new products are coming our way, and if you miss the chance to hear about them at the show, make sure you read about them in this issue.

Probably one of the most interesting tasks that can be given to an architect (system architect, program architect, lead architect, application architect - pick the title that resonates most in your environment) is the task of evaluating or determining the direction of an enterprise architecture.

In the mid 1990s, I worked with an application development environment (ADE) called Forte - essentially, PowerBuilder on steroids. It allowed for scalable, distributed applications to be developed, debugged, and deployed easily within a single environment. The technology was really cool. Sun Microsystems thought so too...and duly purchased the company, Forte Software, Inc., a few years ago.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of BEA WebLogic Developer's Journal (WLDJ)! Anyone who has not been living under a rock for the past two years has seen J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) become the de facto standard for developing component-based, server-side applications. As a leading follower of that standard, BEA's WebLogic Server has become a standard in its own right. It is the most widely licensed application server in the world according to a recent independent study by Gartner Dataquest, which showed that BEA holds 41% of the new direct license revenue in the application server software market. The next closest competitor was IBM's WebSphere with approximately 31%. WebLogic Server has become the standard by which all others in the e-business infrastructure market compare themselves. Its suite of accompanying products, released as BEA WebLogic Portal 4.0 and BEA WebLogic Integration 2.1, also set the bar high for competitors.

There are numerous news groups and discussion lists on the topic of J2EE. I follow several regularly to track trends from the industry's news and views. The mindset I've seen over the past six months has been one of 'topple the giant,' a modern-day 'Jack the Giant Slayer.' In 'Jack the Giant-Slayer,' Jack, a young villager, steps up to the task of ridding the countryside of evil giants.