IBM on Wednesday (October, 6) unveiled the next major upgrade of its WebSphere application server, which focuses on better performance and ease of use, instead of dramatically new functionality.

Version 6 of WebSphere, a Java-based platform for building and running business applications, includes better capabilities for connecting to other software via messaging, more support for web services standards, tools for cutting time in application development and automatic features for handling sudden outages.

In general, IBM has focused on improving the overall platform, including its ability to support service-oriented architectures, an evolution in distributed computing that simplifies software integration through the use of extensible markup language, or XML, and web services standards. Many corporations are currently testing SOAs as a way to reduce integration costs and to build a more flexible IT infrastructure.

"What we''ve been hearing in the market is that a lot of the new (SOA) products don''t work," Ronald Schmelzer, analyst for researcher ZapThink LLC, said. "The main focus on this release is to do it better."

IBM has chosen in version 6 not to add a lot of "revolutionary new products or features," Schmelzer said. "The real emphasis seems to be on simplifying (the platform)."

IBM said it has rewritten the embedded Java-based messaging engine in WebSphere and has developed tools to make it easier to connect applications via messaging either directly through the application server or through an enterprise service bus, which is an interface between applications that allows them to send data back and forth to each other asynchronously.

The upgrade also supports more web-services standards, which are important for companies planning to use the application server within an SOA. Those standards include the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Basic Profile 1.1, WS-Security and WS-Transactions.

"There seems to be a concerted effort by IBM to have a fairly broad set of technologies to address people''s various issues around the emerging SOA model," Tom Murphy, analyst for the Meta Group, said.

In cases of outages due to power failures, natural disasters or other major disruptions, the latest version is able to detect the problem and redirect data automatically to a designated fail-over server, IBM said. The data can be sent either to another server in the same data center or over the Internet to a server in a different location.

The data-protection feature is part of IBM''s "on-demand" computing initiative, which is the company''s move to more flexible IT systems that can more easily scale up or down, and have more self-healing capabilities.

For developers, the upgrade includes a wizards-based, drag-and-drop environment that automates the most common steps of application development and deployment, officials with the Armonk, N.Y., company said.

IBM also said it planned to release a separate version of the upgrade, called WebSphere Application Server " Express, for small and midsize businesses. Both versions are scheduled for release by the end of the year.

IBM''s primary competitors in the Java-based application server market are BEA Systems Inc. and Oracle Corp. BEA is currently trying to regain its footing after a couple of disappointing quarters and the departure of some key executives. Oracle, on the other hand, has shown some growth in the market.

IBM is also facing increasing competition from open-source software such as JBoss.

In other announcements, IBM said it would make WebSphere Extended Deployment Version 5.1, which is used to automatically optimize performance of hardware and software, generally available on Oct. 22. The company also plans to release in the fourth quarter new versions of its development tools, which have been re-branded as IBM Rational Web Developer for WebSphere Software and Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software.