BEA and Siebel Systems Deliver Business Integration Solutions for Universal Application Network (email this article)

SAN JOSE, Calif. and SAN MATEO, Calif., Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS - News), the world's leading application infrastructure software company, and Siebel Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SEBL - News), a leading provider of multichannel eBusiness applications software, today announced availability of Siebel Business Integration Applications for the communication, media and energy industries on BEA WebLogic Integration(TM) 8.1. Also announced today, Siebel Systems will support Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standards on BEA WebLogic Platform(TM) as part of Siebel's next-generation architecture.

Siebel Business Integration Applications are packaged software that integrates business processes across disparate applications and are part of Universal Application Network (UAN). UAN is a standards-based, vendor-independent integration solution led by Siebel Systems and supported by the world's leading technology companies. With packaged, industry-specific business integration processes deployed on BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1, UAN is designed to enable organizations to successfully integrate a diverse environment of packaged, legacy, and custom applications without custom programming, which can dramatically lower cost, complexity, risk, and time to deployment.

Industry-Specific Integration Applications Now Available

Siebel Systems and BEA teamed to deliver Siebel Business Integration Applications for communications, media and energy industries on BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1. These industry-specific, pre-defined business processes address functional areas such as order, billing, and service management for communications and energy companies. Customers using Siebel Business Integration Applications can easily orchestrate industry-specific business processes and connection points across disparate applications. BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 can allow Siebel Business Integration Applications to be easily deployed, configured, modified, and extended. In addition, by combining process integration and application development into one framework, BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 can increase software infrastructure re-use, business flexibility and skills synergy, which can ultimately lead to cost savings.

"Application integration costs organizations more than $90 billion per year, and as such, it represents perhaps the single greatest IT challenge today," said David Schmaier, executive vice president, Siebel Systems. "In an effort to better service customers, many organizations must unify hundreds of disparate applications to achieve a single view of the customer across all sales, marketing, and service channels. We have worked with BEA to reduce integration complexity and cost through simplified, standards-based integration.

For example, communications service providers are under intense pressure to increase revenues and lower operational costs, while simultaneously differentiating themselves based on service quality. To achieve these objectives, providers must maintain a consistent view of the customer and connect sales, marketing, and service processes by linking dozens of software applications, including customer relationship management, business support services, operations support services, provisioning, and billing systems. Siebel Business Integration Applications for communications, combined with the BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1, are designed to enable end-to-end process integration across multiple systems with minimal need for custom development.

BEA and Siebel Systems also plan to offer additional industry-specific business integration applications for the financial services industry, and other cross-industry applications such as customer life cycle management, product and catalog management and order management. All of these applications are scheduled to be available on the BEA WebLogic Integration later this year.

"As a key integration partner for both Siebel Systems and BEA, with expertise in vertical industries like communications, we're able to help customers get to market faster by implementing world-class, industry-specific business integration solutions," said Raju Reddy, CEO of Sierra Atlantic. "When we look at the large installed base of both BEA and Siebel Systems, and the adaptability of BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1, we see a significant opportunity to help customers design and implement IT architectures for hosting rapidly deployable Siebel Business Integration Applications."

Native J2EE Enterprise Edition Support

Siebel Systems is further extending its commitment to open standards through plans for native support for J2EE and Web services in its next generation architecture. Siebel Systems is currently collaborating with BEA engineers to design an architecture that optimizes Siebel eBusiness Applications to run on BEA WebLogic Platform. This architecture will be designed to enable customers to leverage their existing BEA WebLogic investments, and more easily integrate Siebel applications with other J2EE- based applications. The companies also plan to enhance BEA WebLogic Workshop, a unified design and development framework, to support customizing Siebel eBusiness applications, giving customers a single development environment that minimizes the need for additional training.

"The next generation of enterprise applications will run on open systems and standards-based application platforms suites," said Olivier Helleboid, executive vice president of products, BEA Systems. "BEA and Siebel Systems believe this convergence can simplify and reduce the cost of building, integrating, and deploying applications and business processes for our customers. By using BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 with Siebel's Business Integration Applications, enterprises can significantly cut their development time and costs."

Siebel Systems previously named BEA a Strategic Software and Universal Application Network Partner in the Siebel Alliance Program and designated BEA WebLogic Integration as one of its strategic integration platforms for UAN. BEA previously named Siebel a global strategic alliance in the BEA Star Partner Program. Today, the companies are collaborating in the areas of development, marketing and sales to help customers speed the time to value and minimize the long-term cost of ownership for business integration projects.

To find out more information or register for a Webinar on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2003, please visit: www.siebel.com/about/news_events/reg_news_events.shtm?IDnum=6017

About BEA

BEA Systems, Inc. is the world's leading application infrastructure software company, providing the enterprise software foundation for more than 13,500 customers around the world, including the majority of the Fortune Global 500. BEA and its WebLogic® brand are among the most trusted names in business.

Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., BEA has 81 offices in 34 countries and is on the Web at www.bea.com.

About Siebel Systems

Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of eBusiness applications software, enabling corporations to sell to, market to, and serve customers across multiple channels and lines of business. With more than 3,500 customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides organizations with a proven set of industry-specific best practices, CRM applications, and business processes, empowering them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and establish more profitable customer relationships. Siebel Systems' sales and service facilities are located in more than 28 countries.

Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the statements in this press release are forward-looking, including the statements regarding the plans, goals, completion, implementation, benefits, and details of the relationship between BEA and Siebel Systems, Inc.0020 ("Global Partner"); the development efforts, product delivery and other goals related to this relationship; and the features and benefits of BEA's and Global Partner's products. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially include risks associated with: any unforeseen technical difficulties related to the development and optimization BEA's or Global Partner's products; the timing of additional investments of resources by BEA and Global Partner related to any joint initiatives; and any software errors related to BEA's or Global Partner's products or the integration thereof. Readers should also refer to the risk disclosures set forth in BEA's 10-Q for the quarter ended April 30, 2003 as filed with the SEC and subsequent reports filed thereafter by BEA from time-to-time with the SEC. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are made as of the date hereof, and BEA does not assume any obligation to update such statements nor the reasons why actual results could differ materially from those projected in such statements.

Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risk or uncertainties. Future operating results of Siebel Systems may differ from the results discussed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to factors that include, but are not limited to, risks associated with customer relations, such as the availability of Siebel Systems' products and services, customer implementation of products and services, relationships with customers, third-party vendors and systems integrators, concentration of revenues in a relatively small number of customers, existence of errors or defects in products, ability to successfully manage growth, significant current and expected additional competition and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Siebel Systems are included in Siebel Systems' Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at www.sec.gov. Siebel Systems assumes no obligation to update the information in this press release.

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Siebel is a trademark of Siebel Systems, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.