BEA sets up liaison office in Bangalore

BANGALORE, August 25: US-based $289 million

BEA Systems Inc has set up its Indian liaison office in Bangalore. BEA

provides middleware for enterprise applications.

In India, it is in the process of

evangelizing middleware, apart from setting up a network of partnerships

with software applications providers and system integrators across the

country. Middleware solutions are software that provide an interface for

passing information between various software programs or between the

services provided by an operating system and the application software.

BEA Systems HK Ltd country manager, India

liaison office, Srikant S. Rao said that the target segments in the

country would be banks, financial institutions, government departments,

manufacturing industry along with software development companies.

Middleware solutions are gaining importance because their use reduces time

to market and cost of development. "The emergence of online

activities, especially e-commerce will also see a need for

middleware," he added. Presently, the company's focus is to have some

referral customers over the next few months and use that to create a

multiplier effect for the company. Speaking about the market size, Rao

said that a survey from Standish Group estimates that by year 2002,

services segment of Middleware alone will be $40 billion. In the second

quarter of 1999, BEA recorded $100 million revenue.