BEA turns branding iron on Plumtree

Licensing fee growth

By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Software & Security, 18th November 2005 09:13 GMT

Free whitepaper – Managing desktop software for fun and profit

BEA Systems has shifted its chief technology officer (CTO) to help squeeze success from this summer's $200m Plumtree acquisition.

Mark Carges will now lead BEA's Business Interaction Division that is "central" to BEA's AquaLogic brand and which was formed following the Plumtree purchase. At the same time Plumtree's products have been re-branded the AquaLogic User Interaction suite.

The changes emerged as BEA announced third-quarter fiscal results that record a continued surge in services over software licensing. Net revenue from software licensing grew 5.5 per cent to $121m for the three months to October 31 while services increased 13.8 per cent to $170m. Overall revenue increased 10.25 per cent to $291m.

Net income jumped 10.84 per cent to $37m while earnings per diluted share increased one cent to $0.09.

Announcing the results, BEA was coy in supplying details over how long it is taking to close sales of AquaLogic, launched this summer, or how many pilots of the WebLogic SIP Server, launched in February, are actually going live.

Chief executive Alfred Chuang promised SIP Server deployments in the fourth quarter and next year, indicating there have been two deployments so far.

Dodging the AquaLogic question completely, He thanked press and analysts for no longer asking tricky questions about what is BEA's vision and accepting AquaLogic as BEA's strategy for Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs).

"The world, press and customers finally get it," Chuang told analysts. "That's a relief to our salesforce, that we are crystal clear."®

Free whitepaper – Managing desktop software for fun and profit