IBM Impact: IBM Ups the SOA Stakes with Workflow-Oriented BPM

| Apr 14, 2011 | Application Platforms
| Analyst: Charlotte Dunlap

Event Summary

April 11, 2011 -- IBM unveiled new software and services aimed at helping organizations transform their business processes to increase efficiency, reduce costs and ultimately find new ways to grow their businesses. IBM is delivering a new unified business process management (BPM) platform, IBM Business Process Manager, which gives clients unparalleled visibility into key business operations so they can model, automate, monitor and adjust plans instantly. As a result, both large and small companies can now drive growth and responsiveness by continuously improving business processes, such as those found in product development, customer service and finance departments.

Quick Take

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on IBM’s release of IBM Business Process Manager, because the company has accomplished integration between its own powerful and scalable process server and the simple workflow-oriented BPM technology from Lombardi, a BPM provider it acquired last year. The new BPM version emphasizes reuse of business processes through structured process tools, and therefore less need for technical expertise and improved ROI for customers that are increasingly building out new business services.

• Vendor Importance: High to IBM, because its BPM platform represents WebSphere’s largest area of growth. Not only does this product need to continue to evolve and address key market trends, such as the need for workflow and governance; BPM also represents an important part of IBM’s larger SOA story. The company is pinning high hopes on the success of SOA as a way to increase revenues and help customers combat the economic decline of past years by creating new services and applications.

• Market Impact: High on the BPM market segment, because the announcement strengthens IBM’s standing in the competitive BPM market through its new workflow integration. Competitors Oracle, TIBCO, Pegasystems, Software AG and Progress Software all emphasize increased efficiency through workflow functionality, including flexibility and modeling collaboration between developers and non-developers working more closely together to accelerate application development.

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