In-Depth

A sampling of business process flow software vendors

BEA Systems, San Jose, Calif., www.bea.com

BEA WebLogic Workshop -- Web service apps are developed as JWS files, standard Java files with annotations that specify Web service functionality through a simple declarative mechanism.


Collaxa Inc., Redwood Shores, Calif., www.collaxa.com

Collaxa 2 -- BPEL4WS and activities and associated BPEL orchestration tags allow developers to define parallel paths of execution and join patterns within a BPEL Scenario. When deployed, a BPEL Scenario is automatically published as an XML Web service, which can be integrated into larger apps and business processes.


IBM Corp., Somers, N.Y., www.ibm.com

WebSphere -- the product’s workflow engine allows users to define workflows, process flows and the notion of service choreography between any type of Web services, J2EE assets and JDBC events.


Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., www.microsoft.com

Microsoft BizTalk Server -- allows users to define and edit document schema for any structured document type, including XML, EDI and flat files, as well as visually define and build distributed business processes. It can also integrate XML Web services into business processes.


Sun Microsystems Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., www.sun.com

Sun Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) Editor -- an XML-based interface description language that describes the flow of messages exchanged by a Web service participating in choreographed interactions with other services.


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