Cap Gemini Tabs BEA as Integration Partner

Strategy consultancy Cap Gemini Ernst & Young U.S. LLC (CGE&Y)
has teamed with infrastucture software maker BEA Systems
on a business integration suite for the leasing industry.

Terms were not made public, but the deal signals that New York’s CGE&Y is looking to raise its profile as a technology consultant through its alliance with BEA Systems, whose competitors in the application server market alone include IBM, Oracle and JBoss.

The alliance helps get CGE&Y in the crowded field of business integrators, which includes IBM, webMethods and Tibco.

Applications that enable easier and more dynamic business process management are a hot topic in the IT sector these days. Many software vendors are vying for shares of the lucrative pie, which some analysts place in the multi-billion range by 2007. Firms such as IBM, BEA, webMethods, SeeBeyond, Tibco, and Vitria have been looking for ways to up
the ante and give prospective customers more features for reasonable prices.

Calls seeking further comment about why CGE&Y chose BEA over others were not
returned as of press time.

Powered by BEA’s flagship WebLogic Platform for serving applications, Open
Framework for Leasing (OFL) is a business integration suite designed to help
companies consolidate leasing and lending applications more quickly. The
firms argue that it is more cost-effective than buying piecemeal software
items to stitch together new and existing legacy applications.

OFL solves integration challenges such as fusing front-office functions,
such as customer service, that can often be handled with off-the-shelf
software with back-office functions, such as lease-loan accounting, that are
usually powered by legacy systems. OFL was created for easy customization
and supports anything from highly structured equipment financing to basic
automotive leasing.

The WebLogic platform consists of BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1, an
enterprise integration server, accompanied by a data management tool called
Liquid Data for WebLogic. CGE&Y chose WebLogic Integration for its
automation capabilities.

“It reduces the need for costly enterprise-wide IT investments, instead
allowing companies to consolidate and leverage their existing systems. BEA’s
platform greatly facilitates the process,” said Anthony A. Turni, vice
president, CGE&Y Financial Services.

“BEA strives to partner with industry leaders such as CGE&Y to bring the
latest solutions to market — in this case a business integration suite
allowing companies to consolidate and integrate leasing and lending
applications more quickly and
cost-efficiently,” said John Gray, vice president, worldwide alliances, BEA
Systems.