Siebel offers CRM services for BEA-based SOA

InfoWorld - If an announcement related to service-oriented architectures (SOA) made by Siebel Systems Inc. on Thursday is any indication, the company maintains a streak of independence despite its imminent acquisition by Oracle Corp.

Siebel said it has begun shipping a version of its Siebel Component Assembly product for deployment with BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic Server 9.0 application server.

"It is a componentized version of our CRM system that's targeted for custom-build, front-office applications," said David Bernstein, Siebel vice president of technology.

The software enables Siebel customer relationship management (CRM) services such as sales and marketing to be used as components in an SOA.

"They're all available as Web services," said David Bernstein, a Siebel vice president.

"Companies can bring their own assets in the form of Java code and Web services and stitch those into this product," Bernstein added. Users might have proprietary banking and insurance algorithms, for example, which could be interfaced with the Siebel services.

First unveiled in October as part of Project Nexus, Siebel Component Assembly previously has supported deployments on Microsoft .Net and IBM WebSphere systems. IBM, BEA and Microsoft Corp. participated in the development of Siebel Component Assembly.

Conspicuously absent from the list of supported systems thus far is the Oracle Application Server, a fierce competitor with BEA, IBM and Microsoft offerings. This is likely to change, however.

"We're not making any of those announcements today, but that would be a safe speculation," Bernstein said. Oracle's application server is standards-based, making it a likely target for Siebel's product.

Oracle in September announced its intention to acquire Siebel for $5.85 billion. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2006. Siebel, Oracle, BEA and IBM were among a list of companies last week that announced an SOA-related specification entitled Service Component Architecture (SCA).

Siebel's similarly named Siebel Component Assembly product "follows the SCA philosophy around services-wiring and Service Data Objects," Bernstein said.

"In fact, Siebel Component Assembly is the best example of a shipping product that aligns with that specification. It may be the only product" that does so, Bernstein said.

SCA takes Siebel on a necessary path toward componentization, said analyst Sheryl Kingstone, program manager at Yankee Group Research Inc.

"They have to succeed at it, or Siebel will eventually just die out," she said. "They have to continue on this path of componentizing the architecture."

In accommodating BEA and best-of-breed infrastructure, Siebel is differentiating itself from SAP AG's NetWeaver integration initiative, Kingston said.

Siebel's first supporting BEA over Oracle is related