Reinforcing its commitment to the rapidly growing telecommunications market in China, BEA Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAS), a world leader in enterprise and communications infrastructure software, has established the first BEA Telecommunications Technology Centre (TTC) in China. Headquartered in Beijing, the BEA TTC is chartered with extending the BEA WebLogic Communications Platform products to help meet the specific requirements of communications service providers in China, and better address the demands of the burgeoning Chinese telecommunications market.

The Chinese telecommunications industry is growing at a rapid pace. According to the Chinese Information Industry Ministry, Chinese telecommunications industry revenues are growing at a rate of 10.2% and are expected to reach to 639 billion RMB (approximately US$80 billion) in 2006. The number of telephone users is expected to increase by 78 million, bringing the total number to 820 million. The total investment on capital assets is expected be 200 billion RMB (approximately US$25 billion). Facing increasing competition, industry consolidation and declining voice revenues, telecom operators throughout China are investing in standards-based, flexible IT infrastructures to take advantage of 3G networks to rapidly bring new and innovative next-generation services to their customers.

To address this high growth market, BEA has launched the BEA Telecommunications Technology Centre in China. The TTC is responsible for extending the BEA WebLogic Communications Platform products, which include BEA WebLogic SIP Server and BEA WebLogic Network Gatekeeper, to include customised adapters, protocols and other technologies to help meet the specific requirements of Chinese telecom network operators. Furthermore, the TTC is collaborating with the BEA WebLogic Communications Platform product group and local partners to develop application components to help system integrators and ISV speed application deployment and time to market.

“The Chinese telecom market is exploding and the opportunities for growth are endless,” said Yip Ly, general manager, BEA Telecommunications Technology Centre and Asia Pacific Vice President Strategic Business, BEA Systems. “BEA has established the Telecommunications Technology Centre to help communications service providers capitalise on next-generation service delivery opportunities and better address customers’ needs. The TTC, coupled with our communications infrastructure technology and years of telecom industry experience brings a valuable set of resources to the telecom network operators in this region.”

Mike McHugh, vice president and general manager, BEA WebLogic Communications Platform, BEA Systems continued, “The development of BEA’s first Telecommunications Technology Centre in China marks a significant milestone in BEA’s telecommunications strategy – and further solidifies BEA’s commitment to and extends its leadership in the telecom market in Asia. As the tremendous innovation and activity continues in this region, we are investing in the TTC to help our telecom customers transform their businesses to gain competitive advantage, increase revenues and bring new services to market. We have designed the TTC to become a ‘best practice’ for future BEA centres around the world.”

BEA has long been a leader in software for the global telecommunications industry with all of the Global 50 telco operators running portions of their OSS (Operational Support Systems) business on BEA software. BEA has numerous customers in China including China Mobile and China Unicom. Coupled with an extensive partner ecosystem and innovative products including BEA Tuxedo and the BEA WebLogic, BEA AquaLogic and BEA WebLogic Communications Platform product families, the TTC is designed to help existing and future customers capitalise on emerging next-generation communication network architectures based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Telecom Web Services, and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).