Software AG Unveils the webMethods 8.0 Platform

| Jun 26, 2009 | Application Infrastructure | Competitive Update

| Analyst: Michael Meehan

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

June 24, 2009 -Software AG has announced the latest release of its flagship webMethods platform, webMethods 8.0. The release enhances the ability of companies to capitalize on both open architecture and existing infrastructure investments, reduces the time and cost to improve processes and integrate systems, and enables end-user productivity through tighter collaboration between IT and the business. webMethods 8.0 is expected become generally available in December.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Software AG’s announcement of the webMethods 8.0 platform, because it puts the company’s entire application infrastructure stack on the repository backbone of its CentraSite ActiveSOA governance solution. This gives Software AG a well-rationalized portfolio, spanning integration, BPM and governance – all areas where it also competes as best-of-breed.

• Vendor Importance: High to Software AG, because the individual strength of its solutions needed to be worked into a stronger platform story. The vendor competes directly against IBM and Oracle and must make the case that enterprises are not undertaking any undue risks in choosing it over its titanic competitors. The breadth of the webMethods 8.0 platform also will allow Software AG to expand its existing best-of-breed customer engagements into larger relationships.

• Market Impact: High on the application infrastructure market, because Software AG is better positioned to pitch itself as a full-service application infrastructure platform vendor. It has fully absorbed webMethods, which it acquired in 2007, and made it part of a unified middleware portfolio. In particular, Software AG has constructed a platform well-suited to users who grasp or wish to pursue a service-oriented architecture, making integration a function of service composition and governance rather than the other way around.

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Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

| Client access - Full report in Application Infrastructure | More information

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Oracle should emphasize Coherence when competing head-to-head against Software AG for middleware customers. Both vendors have platforms integrated on a common repository backbone, but Software AG does not have a high availability data cache to compete directly against Coherence, giving Oracle a performance argument to counter Software AG’s best-of-breed reputation.

• IBM should use next six months to emphasize the customizable workspaces in its current BPM suite (see IBM BPM Suite Makes Big Strides in Governance, Web 2.0 and BAM, December 24, 2008) before webMethods becomes generally available in December. Software AG has a compelling BPM-SOA to tell with webMethods 8.0, but the platform won’t be available until the end of the year, giving IBM the opportunity to tout its own capabilities in this area.

• Red Hat’s business rules solution provides a competitive differentiator against Software AG and the open source vendor should leverage that advantage until Software AG acquires or develops a mature business rules product.

• TIBCO should drive deeper into middleware appliance market in order to differentiate its performance capabilities from other broad application infrastructure platforms like webMethods 8.0. The breadth of TIBCO’s ActiveMatrix platform is no longer a key differentiator. The company instead should pursue a high performance strategy in order to bolster its large enterprise/large contract business model.

• Progress and Sun should highlight their open source ESBs (FUSE and GlassFish, respectively) as a project entry point for their enterprise integration solutions (Sonic and Java CAPS, respectively). Software AG has a broader middleware platform attached to its ESB, but it does not have a downloadable open source ESB entry point. Progress and Sun can graduate customers to a larger integration solution in a way Software cannot.

CLIENTS ONLY

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

| Client access - Full report in Application Infrastructure | More information

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