"Customers have told us that integrating groupware and instant messaging applications into their portal applications makes it easier for their knowledge workers to share information and collaborate with each other, without having to leave the portal," said Mark Carges, BEA's chief technology officer, as BEA this week completed its acquisition of Compoze Software, Inc., a privately held company based in Wayne, PA.

Compoze Software technologies, which are already integrated and will be sold in conjunction with BEA WebLogic Portal, offer portal customers what Carges called "direct, seamless, standards-based integration of email, calendaring, and task list functionality from Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes."

Compoze Software also enables portal customers to easily integrate Instant Messaging applications from Yahoo!, Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Live Communication Server, as well as the ability to incorporate threaded discussions and group "white-boarding" to any portal. BEA WebLogic Portal and Compoze Software are integrated via an application programming interface and via the end-user-facing portal components known as portlets. All the portlets that expose the integration to end users are JSR-168-compliant and allow customers access to programming interfaces to create new custom collaborative portal applications.

"This integration helps improve user productivity and cut IT costs by eliminating the need for a separate Web client for e-mail and calendaring thus reducing Web sprawl," Carges (pictured) noted. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.