AmberPoint buys CrossWeave in Web services deal

Web services management provider AmberPoint on Tuesday announced the acquisition of CrossWeave, an application integration provider.

The acquisition, the value of which was not disclosed, gives AmberPoint enabling technology to enhance its Web services management offering and grow its customer base, according to AmberPoint. Additionally, the deal opens up possibilities for partnerships with Web services system providers such as BEA Systems and IBM, AmberPoint said.

The company already has partnerships with both of these companies and could leverage CrossWeave assets to extend the arrangements, said Ed Horst, vice president of marketing at Oakland, Calif.-based AmberPoint. Horst said he could not comment on whether AmberPoint already has had discussions with IBM and BEA about the CrossWeave acquisition.

"[CrossWeave's] purpose in life was to build composite applications, where you take pieces of an existing application and combine them into new applications. We're not interested in doing that. However, there are integration [possibilities] around management issues" that could be addressed with CrossWeave technologies, said Horst, adding that CrossWeave's Java technology could fit in with what IBM and BEA are doing with Web services

AmberPoint, whose flagship product is AmberPoint Management Foundation, provides systems to bring enterprise-grade management, monitoring, and security to Web services systems. CrossWeave has pioneered development of composite applications that allow companies to integrate Web applications for use in environments such as portals, management consoles, e-procurement, and CRM desktops, AmberPoint said. Additionally, CrossWeave solutions enable the repurposing and combining of Web applications, integration of internal and external applications, and Web services enablement of existing applications.

AmberPoint recently announced a development agreement with Microsoft through which tools and management technology will be developed to help customers manage distributed applications based on the Microsoft .Net Framework.