(April 23, 2002) - Hewlett-Packard Company added to its flagship HP Netaction software suite a variety of offerings that convert the potential of Web services into reality. The products, developer tools, solutions, and support services accelerate development and deployment of Web services for customers in the telecommunications, financial services, service provider industries, and government sectors.

Among the offerings available now are: HP Netaction Web Services Platform 2.0, HP Netaction Application Server Resilient Edition 8.2, HP Agile Business Infrastructure Solution portfolio, HP Apache-based Web Server 2.0 for HP-UX 11i, HP Middleware Rapid Assist Service, and HP Partner Care Extended.

Developers can avoid technology lock-in, improve time to integration, and lower their infrastructure costs using the HP Web Services Platform 2.0 (HP WSP). HP WSP delivers a modular, standards-based platform that enables customers to create, deploy, integrate, register, discover and use Web services.

Compatible with the HP Application Server, HP WSP extends the capabilities of the application server by enabling Java® applications to be connected to other applications over the Web, behind or outside firewalls, and independent of hardware, operating systems, or application environments - such as Java or .NET.

HP WSP contains a SOAP server for sending, receiving, and processing SOAP-based messages. In addition, HP WSP includes HP Service Composer software, which generates the Web service interface for Java applications, and HP Registry Composer software, which programmatically registers and discovers service in public or private UDDI registries.

HP WSP is built on HP Application Server (HP AS). Now upgraded to version 8.2, both HP AS and HP Application Server Resilient Edition were recently awarded J2EE 1.3 certification and enhanced to include localization in the Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German, French, and Spanish languages.

Additionally, both will now support Intel® Itanium? IA-64 and HP-UX. The HP Application Server Resilient Edition also delivers comprehensive state management, distributed transaction services and enterprise-class Java message service capabilities.

HP continues its Web services leadership by delivering the HP Web Services Registry 2.0 -- which provides a private UDDI registry that can be deployed for corporate intranet or private exchange -- and by delivering the HP UDDI Business Registry, which supports UDDI Version 2 and is hosted by HP for the entire Internet.

The HP Agile Business Infrastructure Solution portfolio enables enterprises to rapidly and cost-effectively integrate multiple existing domains of data, applications, and business processes with new solution domains, such as portals, extended supply chains, employee services, customer care, and user interaction.

Consisting of the HP Integration Solution, HP Mobile Integration Solution and HP Web Services Solution offerings, the HP Agile Business Infrastructure Solution portfolio offers a low-cost, standards-based set of infrastructure components, Java Connector Architecture (JCA)-based connectors, and professional services to rapidly integrate enterprise systems and data.

This solution portfolio extends traditional integration capabilities beyond point-to-point or application-to-application by creating an inter-domain integration fabric that can be stretched across the enterprise to incorporate all technology domains providing enterprise-wide visibility and collaboration across all data, processes, and user interaction devices.

Based on the popular open source Web server, the enterprise-ready HP Apache-based Web Server v.2.0 for HP-UX 11i is bundled at no extra charge with the HP-UX 11i operating environment. This product delivers a fully tested, integrated, and supported Web server with robust security features for secured transactions and enhanced load balancing and scalability.

HP Middleware Rapid Assist Service provides consulting services to assist customers with implementation of HP middleware solutions while HP Partner Care has been extended to include support for HP Netaction products. Unlike offerings from competitors, HP Partner Care offers developers direct contact with HP engineers closely tied to the HP software product developers, which saves time by allowing immediate access to the latest development, integration and deployment information.

Last November, HP became the first major software vendor to deliver a fully functional and scalable J2EE application server, HP AS 8.0, to the marketplace at no charge. Since then, more than 16,000 developers from companies, ISVs and government agencies around the globe have downloaded the free version to design, develop and deliver HP AS-based solutions to the marketplace at significantly reduced total costs.

Additionally, more than 200 new ISVs have joined the HP Software Business Partner program and are integrating their software solutions with HP AS.

HP and Taxware, a developer of transaction-based, worldwide commercial tax software, are jointly delivering one of the industry's first and most intriguing Web services. State governments across the United States have joined together to streamline the process of collecting approximately $260 billion in sales tax each year through the Streamlined Sales Tax Project. The HP and Taxware Web service provides a solution for the calculation, remittance, and reporting of sales tax online.

Using this new Web service, businesses no longer need to manually calculate, collect, and remit sales tax. Instead, the sales tax is automatically processed as part of the customer transaction, reducing cost and complexity. The HP and Taxware solution runs on HP AS and is now available in four states (North Carolina, Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin) with other states and merchants expected to join soon.

More information is available at www.hpsoftwarenews.com.