HP battles Microsoft and Sun in web services war

Hewlett-Packard is launching a raft of web services initiatives in a bid to compete with established players such as Microsoft and Sun.

It has also made its core application server software free to users in a bid to seed market interest.

Anton Knolmar, director of marketing EMEA at HP, said the web services arena was vital to the company whether or not its controversial merger with Compaq went through.

He said: "HP's software is well endorsed both within HP and by Compaq, and is very valid to the combined company."

Among the products HP launched today were a mass of middleware and transaction engines aimed at businesses which are trying to set up ecommerce web services.

It also launched a new set of integration and web services offerings combining various individual products.

It claimed that its decision to make its application server free should not be seen as a direct assualt on market leaders BEA and IBM.

Darren Gale, marketing manager for HP Middleware EMEA, said: "It does compete with the likes of BEA, but we have made sure our web services stack will work with other application servers, because we recognise that a lot of potential customers have already made that infrastructure decision."

He said HP would make money from selling a souped-up version of the app server and promoting additional solutions and services.