For example, customers will be able to exchange inventory and product data in real time rather than in batches. Cisco is relying on webMethods' integration software to standardize and more quickly integrate its customers back-office systems with its commerce site. The service has about 15,000 corporate users. It unveiled a similar Web application for customer-support activities.
Customers can access it free during a trial period.
Java is no longer the magic bullet that Sun hopes to use to slay Microsoft, but rather it's one component in the effort to build Web services in competition with Microsoft. Other important parts of that effort are included in the Java 2 Enterprise Edition. Microsoft and Sun's decision to settle their legal dispute over Java occurred because it was becoming a distraction, he added. In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., Sun charged Microsoft with violating its Java license by adding proprietary extensions that made its version incompatible with others. When Microsoft started modifying Java, that to me was a desecration of a beautiful piece of technology.