IBM Websphere adds new use for die-hard mainframe

SOMERS: IBM introduced on Wednesday a new software that will allow
applications for building Web sites for commerce to run on the workhorse of most
large companies - mainframe computers. The move may spark new interest in the
machines most closely identified with International Business Machines.

Until now, most businesses ran their Internet operations on application
servers - the foundation on which companies operate their Web sites.

An application server contains all the elements and mundane features that
underlie what a commercial Web site does. It also is the basis on which
developers write applications, the personalization, content management, shopping
carts and other specific features that make a Web site unique.

More importantly, the application server connects these applications that
create the Web site features customers see, with the back-end information - the
databases and the transaction capability - which often reside either on a gaggle
of servers or on a mainframe.

Businesses used the mainframe for their industrial strength jobs, said
Gartner research director, Dale Vecchio. "It lacked a strong platform for
offering increasingly complex Web transactions."

Complex functions

The new version of IBM's WebSphere - with its layer of Java, the most
popular language among developers - is between the underlying operating systems
of the computer and the applications. With new WebSphere sitting on the
mainframe, the application can run on the same machine at the same time the
mainframe carries out other complex functions, such as retail transactions and
customer database management.

"If you have 150 Solaris machines running applications in your
environment, you can run them on one mainframe," said, direct of marketing
for WebSphere software, Scott Hebner. Solaris is Sun Microsystems Inc. version
of Unix, an operating system that runs on servers.

With the new WebSphere, IBM takes another shot at applications server maker
leader BEA Systems Inc., whose WebLogic and transaction processor Tuxedo run on
servers that are linked to mainframes. "If I can run Java on a mainframe in
all those environments, I can collapse 50 Unix servers onto one mainframe
platform," Vecchio said. "There's no network in the middle."

Hebner said he believes the new WebSphere will spark new interest in
mainframes. However, it won't convert a lover of Unix into a mainframe loyalist,
Vecchio said.

"In some case this is religious battle," he said. "If you're a
Unix devotee, the last thing in the world you want is a mainframe. If you're a
mainframe guy for 20 years, the only reason why you want to learn Unix is to get
in on your resume."

The new WebSphere costs $35,000 for each mainframe processor.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.