He does, however, add that because of the intelligent network making integration so much easier for middleware, IBM is happy to work with the likes of Cisco and 3Com to work this level of messaging into switches.

IBM software architect, Juan van der Breggen, says: 'Switches will take over only the basic layer of middleware messaging. The network vendors are not taking away any of our lunch money.'

Willie Oosthuysen, systems engineer director at Cisco EMEA, says: 'With the Intelligent Information Network (IIN) and Application Orientated Network (AON) we have made the interface shared and re-usable.' Oosthuysen notes that compliance issues and the need for shorter middleware integration cycles drove the development of building intelligence into the physical network and hardware. 'Now abstract applications can seemingly talk to each other without having to worry about the messages.'

Cisco's standardizing of transfer messages in a network based on SOA also impacts on security, as all messages have to go through the network, and can now be captured and secured.

'A lot of middleware vendors focus on messaging, and it will be those vendors who might not survive, and will have to change their focus,' he adds.