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Building the Next Killer Apps
by Jason Jackson

August 20, 2004

You've spent the last several pages reading about portals and integration, and that's terrific. Integration is not only an important concept behind service-oriented architecture, but also behind life itself. For instance, if my wife were able to integrate me with a frequent desire to do the dishes, she'd likely be a much happier woman.

Mind you, integration is hardly the final word in enterprise application development. Rest assured that BEA engineers are working their tails off creating new products that will change the way developers go about building the next killer app. It's a hard gig for them, because some of these products may never be released to the public. But they continue to plug away, knowing their project could be The Next Big Breakthrough.

The members of our executive team are going to be furious that we've published such confidential information in this space. But this column believes that you, the faithful users of BEA products who are taking the time to read this magazine, need to know about this stuff. So, at the risk of tipping off our competitors to our product-development strategies over the next several months, here's what we currently have in the pipeline:

WebLogic Migration. A must for bird lovers everywhere, WebLogic Migration tracks the migratory patterns of more than 100 different species of our feathery friends. An optional plug-in module also follows the migrations of European swallows and coconuts, but not of African swallows. They don't migrate.

WebLogic Procrastination. A stripped-down version of WebLogic that offers only one feature: When a user hits the submit button in an app built with WebLogic Procrastination, the return message says, "Later. I'm watching the game."

WebLogic Vacation. Just look at you. When was the last time you've been able to take a few days off? You deserve a break, and WebLogic Vacation is ready to provide you with one. Simply hit CTRL-F4, and watch as your monitor displays a lovely montage of a tropical paradise, complete with soothing ukulele music in the background. Aloha, my friend.

WebLogic PlayStation. Sure to be our most popular product ever, WebLogic PlayStation replicates the entire IDE framework of WebLogic Workshop. But once your boss walks away, hit CTRL-F4 to access a fully functional PlayStation system. Includes Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II and other leading titles.

BEA's VP of product development also mentioned that we're apparently working on stuff that makes building SOA applications easier. In hindsight, taking notes during that conversation probably would have been a good idea.

Speaking of integration (bad segue alert), the team over at BEA dev2dev has integrated a whole bunch of new community-oriented features and streaming media onto dev2dev.bea.com, its developer portal. If you weren't able to make it to the conference, you can now access streaming media of many of the eWorld presentations on demand.

Also, the dev2dev team has radically enhanced its newsgroup area, turning into a full-fledged user community ripe with features. Users can access the new dev2dev forums at forums.bea.com.

About the Author
Jason Jackson is editor of dev2dev. Contact him at .