Covalent Technologies, announced that it has made a strategic equity investment in WSO2. WSO2 is a new global startup venture formed by pioneers in Web services and open source to commercialize products and services utilizing Apache Axis, the open source framework for creating, integrating, and deploying Web services applications.

The investment in WSO2 enables Covalent to offer full commercial development and production level support and professional services for Apache Axis to enterprise customers for the first time.  Support for Apache Axis complements the company's industry leading support offerings for the Apache HTTP Web Server and the Apache Tomcat Application Server, among the most popular open source components in the world today.

With offices in Boston and Sri Lanka, WSO2 is developing an open source, integrated Web services middleware framework and value-added services based on Apache Axis and supporting secure, reliable transactions and business processes. WSO2 was recently founded by Sanjiva Weerawarana and Davanum Srinivas, co-creators of the core Web services platform specifications and standards and the technical leads behind the Web services initiatives at IBM and Computer Associates, respectively. Weerawaramn and Srinivas are key drivers in the Apache Axis Web services project as well as open source activities in Sri Lanka.

Web services technology has become the industry's favorite interoperable integration middleware. Based on a rough survey taken last month at Burton Group's Catalyst Conference, more than 80% of Global 1000 companies have deployed Web services applications.

"Apache Axis is the most popular open source Web services framework and the leading framework--open source or commercial--for deployment on Apache Tomcat," says Anne Thomas Manes, VP and Research Director at Burton Group.

"Currently, though, the only support option available for Axis users is a volunteer-based email discussion list. Given the popularity of this framework for business-critical applications, enterprise users will no doubt appreciate the availability of professional service offerings, such as phone support, patches and updates, education, and consulting."

"Demand is rising and the need is real for full commercial support around Apache Axis as enterprise customers increasingly utilize this Web services framework to integrate their business platforms and processes," says Mark Brewer, CEO of Covalent Technologies. "Our partnership with WSO2 enables us to meet this demand as well as reinforce our long-standing commitment to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and steadfast contributions back to the Apache open source community."

"Web services are defining an entirely new computing platform," says Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO of WSO2. "We are thrilled to partner with such a well-respected open source provider as Covalent and excited to play an important role in the rapid adoption of Web services in the enterprise."